LIBRARY 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

SANTA  BARBARA 


PRESENTED  BY 

ROBERT  WESSON 


UCSB    LIBRARY 


THE    HOLY    ROMAN    EMPIRE 


THE     HOLY 
ROMAN     EMPIRE 


BY 


JAMES    BRYCE,   D.C.L. 

HONORARY   FELLOW  OF  TRINITY  AND   ORIEL  COLLEGES 

OXFORD 

AUTHOR  OF  "TRANSCAUCASIA  AND   ARARAT,"   "THE  AMERICAN 
COMMONWEALTH,"   ETC. 


A   NEW   EDITION 

ENLARGED  AND  REVISED  THROUGHOUT,  WITH  A 

CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE  OF  EVENTS 

AND  THREE  MAPS 


gorfc 
THE    MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

LONDON :   MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LTD. 
1913 

All  riffMn  reserved 


COPYKIGHT,    1904, 

BY    THE   MACMILLAN    COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  October,  1904.     Reprinted 
July,  1905;  July,  1907;  July,  1909;  August,  1911  ;  July,  1913. 


Norwood  Press 

J.  5.   Cusbing  G?  Co.  —  Ber-wick  &  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


PREFACE  TO  THE  EDITION  OF  1904 

FORTY  years  have  passed  since  this  book  was  first  pub- 
lished, and  since  then  our  knowledge  of  mediaeval  history 
has  been  much  increased  and  events  have  happened  which 
render  some  of  the  remarks  then  made  no  longer  appli- 
cable. I  have  not  however  attempted  to  rewrite  the  whole 
book,  for  this  reason,  among  others,  that  were  I  to  do  so  it 
would  almost  inevitably  grow  out  of  a  small  volume  de- 
voted to  a  single  Idea  and  Institution  into  a  systematic 
history  of  the  Empire  and  the  Popedom  in  the  Middle 
Ages.  That  would  double  or  treble  its  size,  and  make  it 
unsuitable  to  one  class  of  the  students  who  have  used  it 
in  its  present  form.  I  have  therefore  confined  myself  to 
such  changes  and  enlargements  as  seemed  to  be  most 
needed.  Where  events  of  significance  had  been  omitted 
or  too  briefly  noticed,  additions  have  been  made.  For  in- 
stance, the  struggle  of  the  Emperor  Lewis  IV  against  Pope 
John  XXII  and  the  careers  of  Arnold  of  Brescia  and  Cola 
di  Rienzo  have  been  somewhat  more  fully  described.  An 
entirely  new  chapter  has  been  inserted  dealing  with  the 
East  Roman  or  Byzantine  Empire,  a  topic  inadequately 
handled  in  previous  editions.  A  concluding  chapter, 
sketching  the  constitution  of  the  new  German  Empire  and 
the  forces  which  have  given  it  strength  and  cohesion,  has 
been  appended.  This  chapter,  and  that  which  (first  pub- 
lished in  1873)  traces  the  process  whereby  after  1813  na- 
tional sentiment  grew  in  Germany,  and  national  unity  was 
achieved  in  1871,  are  not  indeed  necessary  for  the  explana- 


vi  PREFACE   TO   EDITION   OF    1904 

tion  of  an  institution  whose  best  days  were  over  four 
centuries  ago.  But  they  help  to  explain  it,  if  only  by  con- 
trast ;  and  the  convenience  to  a  reader  of  finding  a  suc- 
cinct account  of  the  foundation  and  the  character  of  this 
modern  representative — if  one  may  call  it  so  —  of  the 
mediaeval  Empire  will,  I  hope,  be  deemed  to  compensate 
for  whatever  loss  of  symmetry  is  involved  in  an  extension 
of  the  treatise  beyond  its  original  limits.  With  a  similar 
practical  aim,  I  have  prefixed  a  pretty  full  Chronological 
Table  of  important  events,  presenting  such  an  outline  of 
the  narrative  history  of  the  Empire  as  may  serve  to  eluci- 
date the  text,  and  have  added  three  maps. 

The  book  has  been  revised  throughout :  statements 
which  seemed  to  have  been  too  broadly  expressed,  or 
which  political  changes  have  made  no  longer  true,  have 
been  corrected :  more  exact  references  have  been  given 
and  new  illustrations  inserted  in  the  notes.  I  have  to 
acknowledge  with  cordial  thanks  the  help  which  in  the 
verification  of  statements  and  references  I  have  received 
from  my  friend  Mr.  Ernest  Barker,  lecturer  on  history  at 
Wadham  College,  Oxford. 

Did  custom  permit  the  dedication  to  any  one  of  a  new 
edition  of  a  book  long  before  the  public,  I  should  have 
dedicated  the  pages  that  follow  to  Mr.  Goldwin  Smith, 
now  the  honoured  patriarch  of  English  historians,  from 
whom  forty-three  years  ago,  when  he  was  professor  at 
Oxford,  I  received  my  first  lessons  in  modern  history, 
and  whose  friendship  I  have  ever  since  been  privileged 
to  enjoy. 

JAMES   BRYCE. 
September  13,  1904. 


PREFACE  TO  THE  FOURTH  EDITION 

THE  object  of  this  treatise  is  not  so  much  to  give  a 
narrative  history  of  the  countries  included  in  the  Romano- 
Germanic  Empire  —  Italy  during  the  Middle  Ages,  Ger- 
many from  the  ninth  century  to  the  nineteenth  —  as  to 
describe  the  Holy  Empire  itself  as  an  institution  or 
system,  the  wonderful  offspring  of  a  body  of  beliefs  and 
traditions  which  have  almost  wholly  passed  away  from 
the  world.  Such  a  description,  however,  would  not  be  in- 
telligible without  some  account  of  the  great  events  which 
accompanied  the  growth  and  decay  of  Imperial  power ; 
and  it  has  therefore  appeared  best  to  give  the  book  the 
form  rather  of  a  narrative  than  of  a  dissertation ;  and  to 
combine  with  an  exposition  of  what  may  be  called  the 
theory  of  the  Empire  an  outline  of  the  political  history  of 
Germany,  as  well  as  some  notices  of  the  affairs  of  medi- 
aeval Italy.  To  make  the  succession  of  events  clearer, 
a  Chronological  List  of  Emperors  and  Popes  has  been 
prefixed. 

The  great  events  of  1866  and  1870  reflect  back  so 
much  light  upon  the  previous  history  of  Germany,  and  so 
much  need,  in  order  to  be  properly  understood,  to  be 
viewed  in  their  relation  to  the  character  and  influence 
of  the  old  Empire,  that  although  they  do  not  fall  within 
the  original  limits  of  this  treatise,  some  remarks  upon 
them,  and  the  causes  which  led  to  them,  will  not  be  out 
of  place  in  it,  and  will  perhaps  add  to  whatever  inter- 
est or  value  it  may  possess.  As  the  Author  found  that 


Vlll  PREFACE   TO   FOURTH   EDITION 

to  introduce  these  remarks  into  the  body  of  the  work, 
would  oblige  him  to  take  to  pieces  and  rewrite  the  last 
three  chapters,  a  task  he  had  no  time  for,  he  has  pre- 
ferred to  throw  them  into  a  new  supplementary  chapter, 
which  accordingly  contains  a  brief  sketch  of  the  rise  of 
Prussia,  of  the  state  of  Germany  under  the  Confederation 
which  expired  in  1866,  and  of  the  steps  whereby  the 
German  nation  has  regained  its  political  unity  in  the  new 
Empire. 

LINCOLN'S  INN,  LONDON, 
June  28,  1873. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

CHRONOLOGICAL  LIST  OF  EMPERORS  AND  POPES      .        .        .     xix 

CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE  OF  IMPORTANT  EVENTS  IN  THE  HIS- 
TORY OF  THE  EMPIRE  ......  xxxi 


CHAPTER  I 
INTRODUCTORY  . 


CHAPTER   II 

THE  ROMAN  EMPIRE  BEFORE  THE  ENTRANCE  OF  THE 
BARBARIANS 

The  Empire  in  the  Second  Century 4 

Obliteration  of  National  Distinctions 5 

Rise  of  Christianity 9 

Its  Alliance  with  the  State 9 

Its  Influence  on  the  Idea  of  an  Imperial  Nationality     ...  12 


CHAPTER   III 
THE  BARBARIAN  INVASIONS 

Relations  between  the  Primitive  Germans  and  the  Romans  .         .  14 

Feelings  of  the  Germans  towards  Rome  and  her  Empire      .         .  16 

Belief  in  the  Eternity  of  the  Roman  Dominion    ....  20 

Extinction  by  Odoacer  of  the  Western  Branch  of  the  Empire      .  25 

Theodorich  the  Ostrogothic  King        ...;..  27 
Gradual  Dissolution  of  the  Empire      .         .'                .         .         .29 

Permanence  of  the  Roman  Religion  and  the  Roman  Law     .        .  31 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER   IV 
RESTORATION  OF  THE  EMPIRE  IN  THE  WEST 

MM 

The  Franks  :  Growth  of  their  Power 34 

Italy  under  East  Romans  and  Lombards 37 

The  Iconoclastic  Emperors  :  Revolt  of  Italy         ....  38 

Alliance  of  the  Popes  with  the  Prankish  Kings    ....  39 

The  Frankish  Conquest  of  Italy 41 

Adventures  and  Plans  of  Pope  Leo  III 44 

Coronation  of  Charles  the  Great  at  Rome 48 

CHAPTER  V 
EMPIRE  AND  POLICY  OF  CHARLES 

Import  of  the  Coronation  of  Charles 52 

Accounts  given  in  the  Annals  of  the  Time 53 

Question  as  to  the  Intentions  of  Charles 58 

Legal  Effect  of  the  Coronation 63 

Position  of  Charles  towards  the  Church 65 

Towards  his  German  Subjects 68 

Towards  the  Other  Races  of  Europe 69 

General  View  of  his  Character  and  Policy 73 

CHAPTER  VI 
CAROLINGIAN  AND  ITALIAN  EMPERORS 

Reign  of  Lewis  I  (the  Pious) 77 

Dissolution  of  the  Carolingian  Empire         .....  79 
Beginnings  of  the  German  Kingdom  :  King  Conrad  I  and  King 

Henry  (the  Fowler) 80 

Italian  Emperors 81 

Otto  the  Saxon  King 84 

Coronation  of  Otto  as  Emperor  at  Rome 88 

CHAPTER  VII 
THEORY  OF  THE  MEDIAEVAL  EMPIRE 

The  World-monarchy  and  the  World-religion      ....  91 

Unity  of  the  Christian  Church 94 

Influence  of  the  Doctrine  of  Realism 97 


CONTENTS  xi 


PAGE 

The  Popes  as  Heirs  to  the  Roman  Monarchy       ....  100 

Character  of  the  Revived  Roman  Empire 102 

Respective  Functions  of  the  Pope  and  the  Emperor     .        .        .  103 

Proofs  and  Illustrations 109 

Interpretations  of  Prophecy         .        .        .        .        .        .        .  113 

Two  Remarkable  Pictures 116 


CHAPTER  VIII 
THE  ROMAN  EMPIRE  AND  THE  GERMAN  KINGDOM 

The  German  or  East  Prankish  Monarchy 121 

Feudality  in  Germany  .         .         .         .        .         .        .        .122 

Reciprocal  Influence  of  the  Roman  and  Teutonic  Elements  on  the 

Character  of  the  Empire 125 

CHAPTER  IX 
SAXON  AND  FRANCONIAN  EMPERORS 

Adventures  of  Otto  the  Great  in  Rome 133 

Trial  and  Deposition  of  Pope  John  XII 135 

Position  of  Otto  in  Italy 138 

His  European  Policy 239 

Comparison  of  his  Empire  with  the  Carolingian  ....  143 

Character  and  Projects  of  the  Emperor  Otto  III  .         .        .        .  144 

The  Emperors  Henry  II  and  Conrad  II 148 

The  Emperor  Henry  III :  his  Reform  of  the  Papacy    .        .        .  150 

CHAPTER  X 
STRUGGLE  OF  THE  EMPIRE  AND  THE  PAPACY 

Origin  and  Progress  of  Papal  Power 153 

Relations  of  the  Popes  with  the  Early  Emperors          .        .        .  155 

Quarrel  of  Henry  IV  and  Gregory  VII  over  Investitures       .        .  159 

Gregory's  Ideas 160 

Concordat  of  Worms 163 

General  Results  of  the  Contest 164 


Xll  CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  XI 
THE  EMPERORS  IN  ITALY:  FREDERICK  BARBAROSSA 

Frederick  and  the  Papacy 

Revival  of  the  Study  of  the  Roman  Law      .... 
Arnold  of  Brescia  and  the  Roman  Republicans    . 
Frederick's  Struggle  with  the  Lombard  Cities 
His  Policy  as  German  King 


CHAPTER  XII 
IMPERIAL  TITLES  AND  PRETENSIONS 

Territorial  Limits  of  the  Empire  —  Its  Claims  of  Jurisdiction  over 

Other  Countries 183 

Hungary 183 

Poland 184 

Denmark 184 

France 185 

Sweden,  Norway,  Iceland  .        .        .        .        .        .        .186 

Spain 186 

England 187 

Scotland 189 

Ireland 189 

South  Italy  and  Sicily 190 

Venice 190 

Cyprus  and  Armenia 191 

The  East 191 

Rivalry  of  the  Teutonic  and  Byzantine  Emperors         .         .         .  192 

The  Four  Crowns 193 

Title  of  Emperor  not  taken  till  Roman  Coronation       .         .         -195 

Origin  and  Meaning  of  the  Title  '  Holy  Empire'          .        .        .  196 

CHAPTER  XIII 

FALL  OF  THE  HOHENSTAUFEN  :   RENEWED  STRIFE  OF 
PAPACY  AND  EMPIRE 

Reign  of  Henry  VI 205 

Contest  of  Philip  and  Otto  IV 206 

Character  and  Career  of  the  Emperor  Frederick  II                .         .  207 


CONTENTS  Xlll 


PAGE 

Destruction  of  Imperial  Authority  in  Italy 212 

The  Great  Interregnum        .         .         .         .         .        .         .         .213 

Rudolf  of  Hapsburg 215 

Change  in  the  Character  of  the  Empire 215 

Haughty  Demeanour  of  the  Popes        .         .         .    _     .         .         .218 
Conflict  between  the  Emperor  Lewis  IV  and  Pope  John  XXII      .     222 

Protest  of  the  Electors  at  Rhense 225 

The  Defensor  Pads  of  Marsilius  of  Padua 225 

Incipient  Decline  of  Papal  Power 227 


CHAPTER   XIV 
THE  GERMANIC  CONSTITUTION  —  THE  SEVEN  ELECTORS 

Germany  in  the  Fourteenth  Century 229 

Reign  of  the  Emperor  Charles  IV 233 

Origin  and  History  of  the  System  of  Election      ....  234 

Proceedings  at  Imperial  Elections         ......  237 

The  Electoral  College 238 

The  Golden  Bull  of  Charles  IV 243 

Remarks  on  the  Elective  Monarchy  of  Germany  ....  247 

Results  of  Charles  IV's  Policy 249 


CHAPTER  XV 
THE  EMPIRE  AS  AN  INTERNATIONAL  POWER 

Revival  of  Learning 254 

Beginnings  of  Political  Thought 255 

Desire  for  an  International  Authority  to  secure  Peace  .         .        .  256 

Theory  of  the  Emperors  Functions  as  Monarch  of  Europe          .  258 

Illustrations 265 

Relations  of  the  Empire  and  the  New  Learning  ....  267 

The  Men  of  Letters  —  Petrarch,  Dante 270 

The  Jurists 272 

Passion  for  Antiquity  in  the  Middle  Ages  :  its  Causes  .         .         .  273 

The  Emperor  Henry  VII  in  Italy 278 

The  De  Monarchia  of  Dante        .                           ....  280 


xiv  CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  XVI 
THE  CITY  OF  ROME  IN  THE  MIDDLE  AGES 

PACK 

Rapid  Decline  of  the  City  after  the  Gothic  Wars          .        .        .  288 

Her  Condition  in  the  Dark  Ages 289 

Republican  Revival  of  the  Twelfth  Century         .        .        .        .291 

The  Preaching  of  Arnold  of  Brescia 292 

Ideas  and  Career  of  Nicholas  Rienzo 296 

Social  State  of  Mediaeval  Rome 301 

Visits  of  the  Teutonic  Emperors 303 

Revolts  against  them 305 

Existing  Traces  of  their  Presence  in  Rome  ....  307 
Want  of  Mediaeval,  and  especially  of  Gothic  Buildings,  in  Modern 

Rome 309 

Causes  of  this  ;  Ravages  of  Enemies  and  Citizens        .        .        .  309 

Modern  Restorations 312 

Surviving  Features  of  truly  Mediaeval  Architecture  —  the  Bell- 
towers,  the  Mosaics       .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .314 

The  Roman  Church  and  the  Roman  City 315 

Rome  since  the  Revolution .        .318 

CHAPTER  XVII 
THE  EAST  ROMAN  EMPIRE 

Indifference  of  the  Westerns  to  the  Empire  in  the  East  .  .  321 
The  Revival  of  the  Empire  in  the  West  did  not  substantially 

weaken  the  Eastern  Empire 322 

Struggles  against  the  Barbarians  and  the  Muslims  .  .  .  324 

Causes  which  enabled  the  Eastern  Empire  to  maintain  itself  .  327 

Its  Civil  and  Military  Administration 328 

The  Eastern  Empire  a  Pure  Autocracy 330 

Relations  of  Eastern  Empire  and  Church  to  the  Barbarians  .  333 

The  Eastern  Empire  and  the  Orthodox  Church  ....  337 

Influence  of  the  Secular  Power  on  the  Church  ....  338 
Rival  Claims  of  the  Eastern  and  Western  Lines  to  represent  the 

Ancient  Roman  Empire 340 

The  Existence  of  the  Eastern  Empire  affected  but  slightly  the 

Prestige  of  the  Western 344 

The  Existence  of  the  Western  did  not  trouble  the  Minds  of  the 

Easterns 346 


CONTENTS  XV 


Why  the  Easterns  did  not  idealize  their  Emperor         ...  347 

Character  of  the  Intellect  of  the  East  Romans     ....  350 

Their  History  compared  with  that  of  the  West    ....  350 

CHAPTER  XVIII 

THE  RENAISSANCE:  CHANGE  IN  THE  CHARACTER  OF 
THE  EMPIRE 

Weakness  of  Germany 353 

Loss  of  Imperial  Territories 354 

Gradual  Change  in  the  Germanic  Constitution     ....  359 

Beginning  of  the  Predominance  of  the  Hapsburgs       .        .        .  361 

The  Discovery  of  America 362 

The  Renaissance  and  its  Effects  on  the  Empire    ....  363 

Projects  of  Constitutional  Reform        ......  365 

Changes  of  Title  in  Germany 368 

CHAPTER  XIX 

THE  REFORMATION  AND  ITS  EFFECTS  UPON  THE  EMPIRE 

Accession  of  Charles  V 371 

His  Attitude  towards  the  Reformation 373 

Issue  of  his  Attempts  at  Coercion         ......  374 

Spirit  and  Essence  of  the  Religious  Movement    ....  377 

Its  Influence  on  the  Doctrine  of  the  Visible  Church     .         .         .  379 
How  far  it  promoted  Civil  and  Religious  Liberty           .         .         .381 

Its  Effect  upon  the  Mediaeval  Theory  of  the  Empire  .         .         .  384 

Upon  the  Position  of  the  Emperor  in  Europe       ....  385 

Dissensions  in  Germany       ........  386 

The  Thirty  Years'  War 387 

CHAPTER  XX 

THE  PEACE  OF  WESTPHALIA:   LAST  STAGE  IN  THE 
DECLINE  OF  THE  EMPIRE 

Political  Import  of  the  Peace  of  Westphalia         ....  389 

Hippolytus  a  Lapide  and  his  Book 390 

Changes  in  the  Germanic  Constitution 391 

Narrowed  Bounds  of  the  Empire 393 


xvi  CONTENTS 


FACE 

Condition  of  Germany  after  the  Peace 394 

The  Balance  of  Power 397 

The  Hapsburg  Emperors  and  their  Policy 400 

The  Emperors  Charles  VII  and  Joseph  II 403 

The  Empire  in  its  Last  Phase 404 

Feelings  of  the  German  People 406 


CHAPTER   XXI 
FALL  OF  THE  EMPIRE 

The  Emperor  Francis  II 408 

Napoleon  as  the  Representative  of  the  Carolingians     .        .         .  408 

France  and  the  French  Empire 412 

Napoleon's  German  Policy .413 

The  Confederation  of  the  Rhine 414 

End  of  the  Empire 415 

The  Germanic  Confederation       .         .        .        .        .        ...  416 


CHAPTER  XXII 
SUMMARY  AND  REFLECTIONS 

Causes  of  the  Perpetuation  of  the  Name  of  Rome       .        .        .  419 
Parallel  Instances :    Claims  now  made  to  represent  the  Roman 

Empire 420 

Parallel  afforded  by  the  History  of  the  Papacy     .         .        .         .  42 1 

In  how  far  was  the  Empire  really  Roman  ? 426 

Imperialism :  Ancient  and  Modern 428 

Essential  Principles  of  the  Mediaeval  Empire      ....  429 

Influence  of  the  Imperial  System  in  Germany       ....  430 

The  Claim  of  Modern  Austria  to  represent  the  Mediaeval  Empire  432 

Results  of  the  Influence  of  the  Empire  upon  Europe  generally     .  434 

Upon  Modern  Jurisprudence 435 

Upon  the  Developement  of  the  Ecclesiastical  Power    .         .         .  436 

Struggle  of  the  Empire  with  Three  Hostile  Principles          .         .  440 

Its  Relations,  Past  and  Present,  to  the  Nationalities  of  Europe     .  442 

Conclusion 444 


CONTENTS  xvil 


SUPPLEMENTAL  CHAPTERS 

CHAPTER  XXIII 
THE  PROGRESS  OF  GERMANY  TOWARDS  NATIONAL  UNITY 

PACK 

Recapitulation  :  Stages  in  the  Decay  of  the  Old  Empire       .        .  447 

Denationalization  of  Germany      .......  449 

The  Margraviate  of  Brandenburg  and  the  House  of  Hohenzollern  450 

The  Kingdom  of  Prussia 452 

Character  and  Reign  of  Frederick  the  Great         ....  453 

Prussia  during  the  Wars  of  the  Revolution 455 

The  Congress  of  Vienna .  458 

Establishment  of  the  Germanic  Confederation      ....  459 

Aims  and  Efforts  of  the  German  Liberals 463 

The  Revolution  of  1848-9 466 

Restoration  of  the  Confederation  and  its  Diet      ....  467 

The  German  Parties  and  their  Policy 469 

The  Schleswig-Holstein  War 472 

Convention  of  Gastein         ........  476 

War  of  1866:  Fall  of  the  Confederation 477 

The  North  German  Confederation 478 

The  War  of  1870  with  France 481 

Establishment  of  a  New  Empire  in  Germany       ....  482 


CHAPTER   XXIV 
THE  NEW  GERMAN  EMPIRE 

Constitution  of  the  New  Empire  a  Developement  of  the  North 

German  Federation        ........  483 

Structure  of  the  Federal  System 486 

Organs  of  the  Central  Government :  The  Executive     .         .         .  486 

The  Legislature  :  Bundesrath  and  Reichstag        ....  486 

Germany  now  more  united  than  ever  since  the  Middle  Ages          .  490 
Prospects  of  the  Maintenance  of  National  Unity           .         .         .491 

Causes  which  have  worked  for  the  Cohesion  of  the  Empire           .  493 

Growth  of  National  Feeling  since  1814 495 

Prussia's  Part  in  the  Achievement  of  National  Unity    .         .         .  498 


xvill  CONTENTS 


How  far  the  New  Empire  represents  the  Ancient  Holy  Empire     .  500 
Parallel    between   Germany   and   Italy   in   their  Attainment   of 

National  Unity 504 

EPILOGUE 505 

ADDITIONAL  NOTES. 

Notes  I-XXIV  to  the  Preceding  Chapters    ....  513 


APPENDIX 

NOTE  A.  —  On  the  Burgundies 529 

NOTE  B. — On  the  Relations  to  the  Empire  of  the  Kingdom  of 

Denmark,  and  the  Duchies  of  Schleswig  and  Holstein  .  .  533 

NOTE  C.  —  On  Certain  Imperial  Titles  and  Ceremonies  .  .  535 
NOTE  D. — Hildebert's  Lines  contrasting  the  Past  and  Present 

of  Rome 542 

NOTE  E.  —  List  of  Books  which  the  Student  may  consult  .  .  543 

INDEX 545 


MAPS 

I.    Map  showing  the  extent  of  the  Roman  Empire  of  Charles 

the  Great,  A.D.  814 to  face      70 

II.    Map  showing  the  extent  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire  at  the 

death  of  Frederick  I,  A.D.  1190      .        .        .       to  face     180 
III.     Map  showing  the  extent  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire  at  the 

death  of  Maximilian  I,  A.D.  1519  .        .        .       to  face    370 


CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE 


OF 


EMPERORS   AND    POPES 


Year  of 
Accession 

Bishops  of  Rome 

Emperors 

Year  of 
Accession 

A.D. 

B.C. 

Augustus. 

27 

A.D. 

Tiberius. 

14 

Caligula. 

37 

Claudius. 

4i 

42 

St.    Peter    (according    to 

Jerome). 

Nero. 

54 

67 

Linus   (according   to   Ire- 

naeus,  Eusebius,  Jerome). 

68 

Clement  (according  to  Ter- 

Galba,      Otho,     Vitellius, 

tullian  and  Rufinus). 

Vespasian. 

68 

78 

Anacletus  (?). 

Titus. 

79 

Domitian. 

Si 

91 

Clement      (according     to 

some  later  writers). 

Nerva. 

96 

Trajan. 

98 

100 

Evarestus  (?). 

109 

Alexander  (?). 

Hadrian. 

117 

119 

Sixtus  I. 

129 

Telesphorus. 

Antoninus  Pius. 

138 

139 

Hyginus. 

H3 

Pius  I. 

»57 

Anicetus. 

Marcus  Aurelius. 

161 

1  68 

Soter. 

177 

Eleutherius. 

Commodus. 

1  80 

Pertinax. 

193 

XX 


CHRONOLOGICAL   TABLE   OF 


Year  of 
Accession 

Bishops  of  Rome 

Emperors 

Year  of 
Accession 

A.D. 

A.D. 

Didius  Julianus. 

193 

Niger. 

»93 

193 

Victor  (?). 

Septimius  Severus. 

193 

202 

Zephyrinus  (?). 

Caracalla,  Geta. 

211 

Opilius    Macrinus,    Diadu- 

menian. 

217 

Elagabalus. 

2X8 

219 

Calixtus  I. 

Alexander  Severus. 

222 

223 

Urban  I. 

230 

Pontianus. 

235 

Anterius  or  Anteros. 

Maximin. 

235 

236 

Fabianus. 

The  two  Gordians,   Maxi- 

mus  Pupienus,  Balbinus. 

237 

The  third  Gordian. 

238 

Philip. 

244 

Decius. 

249 

25I 

Cornelius. 

Hostilian,  Gallus. 

25  I 

252 

Lucius  I. 

Volusian. 

252 

253 

Stephen  I. 

Aemilian,    Valerian,     Gal- 

lienus. 

253 

257 

Sixtus  II. 

259 

Dionysius. 

Gallienus  alone. 

260 

Claudius  II. 

268 

269 

Felix. 

Aurelian. 

270 

275 

Eutychianus. 

Tacitus. 

275 

Florian. 

276 

Probus. 

276 

Carus. 

282 

283 

Caiug. 

Carinus,  Numerian. 

284 

Diocletian. 

284 

Maximian,  associated  with 

1 

Diocletian. 

286 

296 

Marcellinus. 

304 

Vacancy. 

Constantius,  Galerius. 

305 

Severus. 

306 

Constantine  (the  Great). 

306 

Licinius. 

3°7 

EMPERORS   AND   POPES 


xxi 


Year  of 
Accession 

Bishops  of  Rome 

Emperors 

Year  of 
Accession 

A.D. 

A.D. 

308 

Marcellus  I. 

Maximin. 

308 

Constantine,   Galerius,  Li- 

cinius,    Maximin,    Max- 

entius,     and     Maximian 

reigning  jointly. 

309 

3IO 

Eusebius. 

3" 

Melchiades. 

3H 

Sylvester  I. 

Constantine    (the     Great) 

alone. 

323 

336 

Marcus  I. 

337 

Julius  I. 

Constantine    II,    Constan- 

tius  II,  Constans. 

337 

Magnentius. 

352 

Liberius. 

Constantius  alone. 

353 

356 

(Felix,  Anti-pope.) 

Julian. 

36i 

Jovian. 

363 

Valens  and  Valentinian  I. 

364 

366 

Damasus  I. 

Gratian  and  Valentinian  I. 

367 

Gratian  and  Valentinian  II. 

375 

Theodosius. 

379 

384 

Siricius. 

Arcadius    (in    the     East), 

Honorius  (in  the  West). 

395 

398 

Anastasius  I. 

402 

Innocent  I. 

Theodosius  II.  (E) 

408 

417 

Zosimus. 

418 

Boniface  I. 

418 

(Eulalius,  Anti-pope.) 

422 

Celestine  I. 

Valentinian  III.  (W) 

424 

432 

Sixtus  III. 

440 

Leo  I  (the  Great). 

Marcian.  (E) 

45° 

Maximus,  Avitus.  (W) 

455 

Majorian.  (W) 

455 

Leo  I.  (E) 

457 

461 

Hilarius. 

Severus.  (W) 

461 

Vacancy.  (W) 

465 

xxii 


CHRONOLOGICAL   TABLE   OF 


Year  of 
Accession 

Bishops  of  Rome 

Emperors 

Year  of 
Accession 

A.D. 

A.D. 

Anthemius.  (W) 

467 

468 

Simplicius. 

Olybrius.  (W) 

472 

Glycerius.  (W) 

473 

Julius  Nepos.  (W) 

474 

Leo    II,  Zeno,   Basiliscus. 

(All  E) 

474 

Romulus  Augustulus.  (W) 

475 

(End  of  the  Western  line 

in  Romulus  Augustulus.) 

476 

{Henceforth,  till  A.D.  800, 

Emperors     reigning    at 

483 

Felix  III.* 

Constantinople.) 

Anastasius  I. 

491 

492 

Gelasius  I. 

496 

Anastasius  II. 

498 

Symmachus. 

498 

(Laurentius,  Anti-pope.) 

5*4 

Hormisdas. 

Justin  I. 

518 

523 

John  I. 

526 

Felix  IV. 

Justinian. 

527 

530 

Boniface  II. 

53° 

(Dioscorus,  Anti-pope). 

532 

John  II. 

535 

Agapetus  I. 

536 

Silverius. 

537 

Vigilius. 

555 

Pelagius  I. 

560 

John.  III. 

Justin  II. 

565 

574 

Benedict  I. 

578 

Pelagius  II. 

Tiberius  II. 

578 

Maurice. 

582 

590 

Gregory  I  (the  Great). 

Phocas. 

602 

604 

Sabinianus. 

607 

Boniface  III. 

607 

Boniface  IV. 

Heraclius. 

610 

615 

Deus  dedit. 

618 

Boniface  V. 

*  Reckoning  the  Anti-pope  Felix  (A.D.  356)  as  Felix  II. 

EMPERORS   AND   POPES 


xxm 


Year  of 
Accession 

Popes 

Emperors 

Year  of 
Accession 

A.D. 

A.D. 

625 

Honorius  I. 

638 

Sevcrinus. 

640 

John  IV. 

Constantino  III,  Heracleo- 

642 

Theodorus  I. 

nas,  Constans  II. 

641 

649 

Martin  I. 

654 

Eugenius  I. 

657 

Vitalianus 

Constantine     IV     (Pogo- 

672 

Adeodatus. 

natus). 

668 

676 

Domnus  or  Bonus  I. 

678 

Agatho. 

682 

Leo  II. 

683C?) 

Benedict  II. 

685 

John  V. 

Justinian  II. 

685 

685(?) 

Conon. 

687 

Sergius  I. 

687 

(Paschal,  Anti-pope.) 

687 

(Theodorus,  Anti-pope.) 

Leontius. 

694 

Tiberius  III. 

697 

701 

John  VI. 

705 

John  VII. 

Justinian  II  restored. 

705 

708 

Sisinnius. 

708 

Constantine. 

Philippicus  Bardanes. 

711 

Anastasius  II. 

713 

7»S 

Gregory  II. 

Theodosius  III. 

716 

Leo  III  (the  Isaurian). 

7i8 

73» 

Gregory  IIL 

74i 

Zacharias. 

Constantine   V    (Coprony- 

mus). 

741 

752 

Stephen  (II). 

752 

Stephen  II  (or  III). 

757 

Paul  I. 

767 

(Constantine,  Anti-pope.) 

768 

Stephen  III  (IV). 

772 

Hadrian  I. 

Leo  IV. 

775 

Constantine  VI. 

780 

795 

Leo  III. 

Deposition  of  Constantine 

VI  by  Irene. 

797 

XXIV 


CHRONOLOGICAL   TABLE   OF 


Year  of 
Accession 

Popes 

Emperors 

Year  of 
Accession 

A.D. 

A.D. 

Charles  I  (the  Great). 

800 

(Following   henceforth    the 

ne^v  Western  line.) 

Lewis  I  (the  Pious). 

814 

816 

Stephen  IV. 

817 

Paschal  I. 

824 

Eugenius  II. 

827 

Valentinus. 

827 

Gregory  IV. 

Lothar  I. 

840 

844 

Sergius  II. 

847 

Leo  IV. 

855 

Benedict  III. 

Lewis  II  (in  Italy). 

855 

855 

(Anastasius,  Anti-pope.) 

858 

Nicholas  I. 

867 

Hadrian  II. 

872 

John  VIII. 

Charles  II,  the  Bald   (W. 

Frankish). 

875 

Charles   III,   the   Fat    (E. 

882 

Martin  II. 

Frankish). 

88  1 

884 

Hadrian  III. 

Interval  from  888. 

885 

Stephen  V. 

891 

Formosus. 

Guiclo  (in  Italy). 

891 

Lambert  (in  Italy). 

894 

896 

Boniface  VI. 

Arnulf  (E.  Frankish). 

896 

896 

Stephen  VI. 

897 

Romanus. 

897 

Theodore  II. 

898 

John  IX. 

Lewis  (the  Child)* 

899 

900 

Benedict  IV. 

Lewis    III    king    of    Pro- 

903 

Leo  V. 

vence  (in  Italy). 

901 

903 

Christopher. 

904 

Sergius  III. 

911 

Anastasius  III. 

Conrad  /. 

911 

913 

Lando. 

914 

John  X. 

Berengar  (in  Italy). 

915 

Henry  I  (the   Fowler)    of 

928 

Leo  VI. 

Saxony. 

918 

*  The  names  in  italics  are  those  of  East  Frankish  or  German  kings  who  never  made 

any  claim  to  the  imperial  title. 

EMPERORS   AND   POPES 


XXV 


Year  of 
Accession 

Popes 

Emperors 

Year  of 
Accession 

A.D. 

A.D. 

929 

Stephen  VII. 

931 

John  XL 

936 

Leo  VII. 

Otto  I  {the  Great)  ,  crowned 

939 

Stephen  VIII. 

E.     Prankish     king     at 

941 

Martin  III. 

Aachen. 

936 

946 

Agapetus  II. 

955 

John  XII. 

Saxon  House. 

Otto  I,  crowned   Emperor 

963 

Leo  VIII. 

at  Rome. 

962 

964 

(Benedict  V,  Anti-pope?) 

965 

John  XIII. 

972 

Benedict  VI. 

Otto  II. 

973 

974 

(Boniface  VII,  Anti-pope?) 

974 

Domnus  II  (?). 

974 

Benedict  VII. 

983 

John  XIV. 

Otto  III. 

983 

985 

John  XV. 

996 

Gregory  V. 

996 

(John  XVI,  Anti-pope?) 

999 

Sylvester  II. 

Henry  II  (the  Saint). 

1  002 

1003 

John  XVII. 

1003 

John  XVIII. 

1009 

Sergius  IV. 

IOI2 

Benedict  VIII. 

House  of  Franconia. 

IO24 

John  XIX. 

Conrad  II  (the  Salic). 

1024 

1033 

Benedict  IX. 

Henry  III  (the  Black). 

1039 

1044 

(Sylvester,  Anti-pope.) 

1045 

Gregory  VI. 

1046 

Clement  II. 

1048 

Damasus  II. 

1048 

Leo  IX. 

ICK4 

Victor  II. 

J* 

Henry  IV. 

1056 

1057 

Stephen  IX. 

1058 

Benedict  X. 

1059 

Nicholas  II. 

1061 

Alexander  II. 

1073 

Gregory  VII  (Hildebrand). 

(Rudolf  of  Swabia,  rival.) 

1077 

1080 

(Clement,  Anti-pope.) 

(Hermann  of  Luxemburg, 

1086 

Victor  III. 

rival.) 

1081 

XXVI 


CHRONOLOGICAL   TABLE   OP 


Year  of 
Accession 

Popes 

Emperors 

Year  of 
Accession 

A.D. 

A.D. 

1087 

Urban  II. 

(Conrad  of  Franconia,  rival.) 

1093 

1099 

Paschal  II. 

IIO2 

(Albert,  Anti-pope.) 

IIO5 

(Sylvester,  Anti-pope.) 

Henry  V. 

1106 

IIlS 

Gelasius  II. 

1118 

(Gregory,  Anti-pope.) 

1119 

Calixtus  II. 

1  121 

(Celestine,  Anti-pope.) 

1124 

Honorius  II. 

Lothar  II  (of  Saxony). 

1125 

1130 

Innocent  II. 

House  of  Swabia  or  Hohen- 

staufen. 

(Anacletus,  Anti-pope.) 

*  Conrad  III. 

1138 

1138 

(Victor,  Anti-pope.) 

"43 

Celestine  II. 

1144 

Lucius  II. 

"45 

Eugenius  III. 

Frederick  I  (Barbarossa). 

"52 

"53 

Anastasius  IV. 

"54 

Hadrian  IV. 

"59 

Alexander  III. 

"59 

(Victor,  Anti-pope.) 

1164 

(Paschal,  An  ti  -pope.) 

1168 

(Calixtus,  Anti-pope.) 

1181 

Lucius  III. 

1185 

Urban  III. 

1187 

Gregory  VIII. 

1187 

Clement  III. 

Henry  VI. 

1190 

1191 

Celestine  III. 

*  Philip,  Otto  IV  (rivals). 

"97 

1198 

Innocent  III. 

Otto  IV  (House  of  Bruns- 

wick") . 

1208 

Frederick  II. 

1212 

1216 

Honorius  III. 

1227 

Gregory  IX. 

1241 

Celestine  IV. 

1241 

Vacancy. 

1243 

Innocent  IV. 

(Henry  Raspe,  rival.) 

1246 

(William  of  Holland,  rival.) 

1246-7 

*  Those  marked  with  an  asterisk  were  never  actually  crowned  at  Rome. 

EMPERORS  AND   POPES 


XXVll 


Year  of 

Accession 

Popes 

Emperors 

Year  of 
Accession 

A.D. 

A.D. 

*Conrad  IV. 

1250 

1254 

Alexander  IV. 

Interregnum. 

1254 

*Richard  (earl  of  Cornwall), 

*  Alfonso  (king  of  Castile) 

I26l 

Urban  IV. 

(rivals). 

1257 

1265 

Clement  IV. 

1269 

Vacancy. 

1271 

Gregory  X. 

*Rudolf  I  (of  Hapsburg). 

"73 

1276 

Innocent  V. 

1276 

Hadrian  V. 

1277 

John  XX  or  XXI. 

1277 

Nicholas  III. 

I28l 

Martin  IV. 

1285 

Honorius  IV. 

1289 

Nicholas  IV. 

1292 

Vacancy. 

*  Adolf  (of  Nassau). 

1292 

1294 

Celestine  V. 

1294 

Boniface  VIII. 

*Albert  I  (of  Hapsburg). 

1298 

1303 

Benedict  XL 

!3°5 

Clement  V. 

Henry  VII  (of  Luxemburg). 

1308 

I3M 

Vacancy. 

Lewis  IV  (of  Bavaria). 

I3H 

(Frederick  of  Austria,  rival.  ^ 

1316 

John  XXII. 

1334 

Benedict  XII. 

1342 

Clement  VI. 

Charles  IV  (of  Luxemburg). 

1352 

Innocent  VI. 

(Giinther  of  Schwartzburg, 

rival.) 

1347 

1362 

Urban  V. 

1370 

Gregory  XI. 

1378 

Urban  VI. 

*Wenzel  (of  Luxemburg). 

1378 

(Clement  VII,  Anti-pope.) 

Beginning   of  the    Great 

Schism, 

1389 

Boniface  IX. 

1394 

(Benedict,  Anti-pope.) 

*  Rupert  (of  the  Palatinate). 

1400 

1404 

Innocent  VII. 

1406 

Gregory  XII. 

1409 

Alexander  V. 

*  Those  marked  with  an  asterisk  were  never  actually  crowned  at  Rome. 

XXV111 


CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE   OF 


Year  of 
Accession 

Popes 

Emperors 

Year  of 
Accession 

A.D. 

A.D. 

I4IO 

John  XXIII. 

Sigismund  (of  Luxemburg). 

(Jobst,  of  Moravia,  rival.) 

1410 

End  of  the  Great  Schism. 

1417 

Martin  V. 

1431 

Eugene  IV. 

*Albert  II  (of  Hapsburg)  .f 

1438 

H39 

(Felix  V,  Anti-pope.) 

Frederick  III. 

1440 

1447 

Nicholas  V. 

H55 

Calixtus  III. 

1458 

Pius  II. 

1464 

Paul  II. 

1471 

Sixtus  IV. 

1484 

Innocent  VIII. 

1493 

Alexander  VI. 

*  Maximilian  I. 

1493 

1503 

Pius  III. 

i5°3 

Julius  II. 

1^3 

LeoX. 

JCharles  V. 

15*9 

1522 

Hadrian  VI. 

1523 

Clement  VII. 

1534 

Paul  III. 

»5SO 

Julius  III. 

»555 

Marcellus  II. 

!555 

Paul  IV. 

*Ferdinand  I. 

1558 

IS59 

Pius  IV. 

*Maximilian  II. 

i564 

1566 

Pius  V. 

1572 

Gregory  XIII. 

*Rudolf  II. 

!576 

1585 

Sixtus  V. 

1590 

Urban  VII. 

1590 

Gregory  XIV. 

1591 

Innocent  IX. 

1592 

Clement  VIII. 

1604 

Leo  XI. 

1604 

Paul  V. 

"•Matthias. 

1612 

*Ferdinand  II. 

1619 

*  Those  marked  with  an  asterisk  were  never  actually  crowned  at  Rome, 
t  All  the  succeeding  Emperors,  except  Charles  VII  and  Francis  I,  belong  to  the  House 

of  Hapsburg. 

J  Crowned  Emperor,  but  at  Bologna,  not  at  Rome. 

EMPERORS   AND   POPES 


xxix 


Year  of 
Accession 

Popes 

Emperors 

Year  of 
Accession 

A.D. 

A.D. 

1621 

Gregory  XV. 

1623 

Urban  VIII. 

*Ferdinand  III. 

1637 

1644 

Innocent  X. 

1655 

Alexander  VII. 

*  Leopold  I. 

1658 

1667 

Clement  IX. 

1670 

Clement  X. 

1676 

Innocent  XI. 

1689 

Alexander  VIII. 

1691 

Innocent  XII. 

I7OO 

Clement  XI. 

"Joseph  I. 

1705 

•"Charles  VI. 

I7II 

1720 

Innocent  XIII. 

1724 

Benedict  XIII. 

1730 

Clement  XII. 

1740 

Benedict  XIV. 

*CharlesVII  (of  Bavaria). 

1742 

*Francis  I  (of  Lorraine). 

1745 

1758 

Clement  XIII. 

*Joseph  II. 

1765 

1769 

Clement  XIV. 

1775 

Pius  VI. 

"•Leopold  II. 

1790 

""Francis  II. 

1792 

l8dO 

Pius  VII. 

ABDICATION  OF  FRANCIS  II. 

1806 

1823 

Leo  XII. 

1829 

Pius  VIII. 

1831 

Gregory  XVI. 

1846 

Pius  IX. 

GERMAN  EMPERORS 

William  I. 

1871 

Frederick. 

1888 

William  II. 

1888 

1878 

Leo  XIII. 

1903 

PiusX. 

*  Those  marked  with  an  asterisk  were  never  actually  crowned  at  Rome. 

CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE  OF 

IMPORTANT   EVENTS   IN   THE   HISTORY 

OF   THE   EMPIRE 

B.C.  48  Battle  of  Pharsalus.     Julius  Caesar  receives   the  power  of  a 

tribune  for  life,  and  (B.C.  45)  a  perpetual  dictatorship. 
31  Battle  of  Actium.     Octavianus  (Augustus)  becomes  master  of 

the  whole  dominions  of  Rome. 

A.D.  9  Defeat  of  the  Roman  army  under  Varus  in  Westphalia:  con- 
sequent abandonment  of  the  policy  of  conquering  Germany. 
64  First  persecution  of  the  Christians  under  Nero. 

292  Division  of  the  Empire  into  four  areas  of  government :  first 
appearance  of  the  East  as  a  separate  realm. 

313  Recognition  of  Christianity  by  Edict  of  Constantine  as  a  lawful 
religion. 

325  Constantine  presides  in  the   First  General  Council  of  Nicaea 

which  condemns  the  Arians  and  issues  the  Nicene  Creed. 
326-8  Constantinople  or  New  Rome,  founded  by  extending  the  site  of 
the  ancient  Greek  colony  of  Byzantium,  becomes  the  seat  of 
imperial  government. 

361  Efforts  of  Julian  to  restore  pagan  worship  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

364  Division  of  the  Empire  by  Valentinian  I  into  an  Eastern  and 
a  Western  realm. 

376  A  large  body  of  Goths  permitted  to  cross  the  Danube  into  the 
Empire :  subsequent  war  between  them  and  the  Emperor 
Valens :  he  is  defeated  and  killed  in  the  battle  of  Adrianople 
in  378. 

395  Final  Division  of  the  Empire  between  Arcadius  who  receives 
the  Eastern  and  Honorius  who  receives  the  Western  prov- 
inces. 

409  Abandonment  of  Britain  by  the  Roman  armies. 

410  Capture  and  sack  of  Rome  by  the  West  Goths  under  Alarich. 
412  Foundation  of  a  West  Gothic  monarchy  in  Southern  Gaul  by 

Athaulf  (who  marries  Placidia  daughter  of  Theodosius  the 
Great),  and  (419)  by  his  successor  Wallia. 
Bad 


xxxii  CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE 

395-430  St.  Augustine,  Bishop  of  Hippo  in  Africa:  he  composes  his 

De  Civitate  Dei  between  413  and  426. 
429  The  Vandals  enter  Africa,  having  traversed  Gaul  and  Spain, 

and  found  a  kingdom  there. 

443-75  The  Burgundians  form  a  monarchy  in  Southeastern  Gaul. 
462-72  Euric,  king  of  the  West  Goths,  conquers  Spain  and  establishes 
there  the  Gothic  monarchy  which  lasts  till  the  Arab  con- 
quest. 

455  Invasion  of  Italy  and  sack  of  Rome  by  the  Vandal  Gaiserich. 
451  Fourth  General  Council  held  at  Chalcedon  :  settlement  of  the 
doctrine  of  the  Nature  of  Christ  and  consequent  alienation 
of  the  Monophysites  of  Egypt  and  Syria. 
451-2  Attila  invades  Gaul  and  is  repulsed  near  Chalons-sur-Marne. 

He  then  enters  Italy  and  destroys  Aquileia. 

476  Odoacer  deposes  the  Emperor  Romulus  Augustulus  and  as- 
sumes the  rule  of  Italy,  which  is  however  nominally  reunited 
to  the  Eastern  half  of  the  Empire. 

481-511  Reign  of  Clovis  king  of  the  Franks  :  he  enters  Gaul,  overcomes 
Syagrius,  ruling  at  Soissons,  defeats  the  Burgundians  and 
the  West  Goths  (of  Aquitaine),  and  establishes  the  Frankish 
monarchy,  which  includes  Gaul  and  Western  Germany,  the 
Burgundians  being  reduced  to  dependence. 
489-526  Theodorich  the  Amal  leads  the  East  Goths  across  the  Alps, 

defeats  Odoacer,  and  reigns  over  Italy  and  Sicily. 
529-34  The  Emperor  Justinian  revises  and  consolidates  the  Roman 

law  and  issues  the  Code  Digest  and  Institutes. 
533  Belisarius,  sent  by  Justinian,  reconquers  Africa  from  the  Van- 
dals for  the  Roman  Empire. 

535-53  Long  war  of  Justinian  against  the  East  Goths  in  Italy :  Italy 
and  Sicily  are  reconquered ;  disappearance  of  the  East 
Gothic  nation. 

568  Alboin  leads  the  Lombards  into  Italy,  conquers  the  Northern 

part   of    it  and   establishes   a   monarchy   there ;    Lombard 

chieftains  subsequently  found  the  duchies  of  Spoleto  and 

Benevento. 

622  Flight  of  Mohammed  from   Mecca  to  Medina  (Era  of  the 

Hegira). 

622-28  Campaign  of  the  Emperor  Heraclius  against  the  Sassanid 
kings :  defeat  of  the  Persians  and  recovery  of  the  eastern 
Provinces. 


OF  IMPORTANT  EVENTS  xxxiii 

633-52  The  Mohammedan  Arabs  invade  Syria,  conquer  Syria,  Egypt, 
Mesopotamia,  and  Armenia,  and  invade  Asia  Minor. 

638  Pipin  of  Landen,  founder  of  the  Carolingian  house,  rises  to 
power  among  the  Franks  as  Mayor  of  the  Palace. 

688  Pipin  (of  Heristal),  grandson  of  the  first  Pipin,  becomes  virtual 

ruler  of  the  Franks  as  Mayor  of  the  Palace. 

669-96  The  Arabs  invade  North  Africa,  and  destroy  the  Roman  power 
there. 

711  The  Arabs  and  Berbers  invade  Spain,  defeat  Roderich  the  last 
of  the  West  Gothic  kings  in  the  battle  of  the  Guadalete,  and 
in  a  few  years  conquer  the  whole  Iberian  peninsula,  except 
the  mountains  of  Asturias  and  Biscay. 

732  The  Arab  invasions  of  Gaul  are  checked  in  a  battle  near 
Poitiers  by  Charles  Martel,  Frankish  Mayor  of  the  Palace, 
son  of  the  second  Pipin. 

726-32  The  Emperor  Leo  III  (reigning  at  Constantinople)  issues  an 
Edict  forbidding  the  worship  of  images  and  ordering  their 
destruction  in  the  churches.  It  evokes  strong  opposition 
from  the  Roman  church  and  leads  to  a  revolt  of  the  North 
Italian  subjects  of  the  Empire.  The  Lombard  king,  Liud- 
prand,  invades  the  imperial  territories  in  North  Italy.  Pope 
Gregory  II  induces  him  to  withdraw  from  before  Rome. 

741  Pope  Gregory  III,  still  in  conflict  with  the  Emperor  and 
threatened  by  the  Lombards,  appeals  to  Charles  Martel 
and  sends  him  the  keys  of  the  tomb  of  the  Apostles. 

751  With  the  authorization  of  Pope  Zacharias,  Pipin  (the  Short), 
Mayor  of  the  Palace  in  Gaul,  becomes  king  of  the  Franks  in 
the  place  of  the  Merovingian  Childebert  III. 

753  Pope  Stephen  II  asks  help  from  the  Emperor  at  Constantinople 

against  the  Lombard  king  Aistulf,  who  is  threatening  Rome. 

754  Pope  Stephen  goes  to  Gaul  and  crowns  and  anoints  Pipin  as 

king.  Pipin  invades  Italy  and  reduces  Aistulf  to  sub- 
mission. 

756  Pipin,  at  the  call  of  the  Pope,  again  enters  Italy,  overcomes 
the  Lombards,  bestows  on  the  See  of  Rome  the  territories 
belonging  to  the  Exarchate  of  Ravenna,  and  receives  the 
title  of  Patrician. 

758  Charles  (the  Great),  son  of  Pipin,  becomes  king  of  the  Franks 
of  Neustria,  and  after  the  death  of  his  brother  Carloman 
(in  771)  king  of  the  Franks  of  Austrasia  also. 


xxxiv  CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE 

772-803  Wars  of  Charles  against  the  Saxons,  ending  in  their  submission 

and  enforced  conversion. 

773-4  Charles,  at  the  appeal  of  the  Pope,  who  is  menaced  by  king 
Desiderius,  attacks  and  subjects  the  Lombards,  adding  North 
Italy  to  his  dominions,  and  is  recognized  as  suzerain  of 
Rome. 

778  Expedition  of  Charles  into  Spain :  fight  at  Roncesvalles  be- 
tween his  troops  and  the  Basques. 

794  Charles  presides  in  a  Church  Council  held  at  Frankfort  whick 
disapproves  of  Pope  Hadrian's  action  regarding  images. 

797  Irene  deposes  and  blinds  her  son  the  Emperor  Constantine  VI. 

800  CHARLES  is  CROWNED  EMPEROR  AT  ROME. 

805  Charles  defeats  and  reduces  the  Avars. 

810-12  Negotiations  of  Charles  with  the  East  Roman  Emperors  :  they 
ultimately  recognize  him  as  Emperor  and  as  ruler  of  North- 
ern Italy,  except  Venice.  The  south  of  Italy  and  Sicily 
remain  subject  to  Constantinople. 

814  Death  of  Charles:  he  is  succeeded  by  his  son  Lewis,  whom 

he  had  crowned  as  co-Emperor  in  813. 

817-39  Lewis  I  makes  several  divisions  of  his  dominions  among  his 
sons :  quarrels  arise  between  him  and  them  and  between 
the  sons  themselves.  The  administrative  system  estab- 
lished by  Charles  falls  to  pieces.  Norse  and  Danish  pirates 
devastate  the  coasts  of  Germany  and  Gaul. 

841  Battle  of  Fontanetum  between  Lewis  and  Charles,  the  younger 
sons  of  Lewis  I  (who  had  died  in  840)  and  their  brother  the 
Emperor  Lothar ;  defeat  of  Lothar. 

843  Partition  treaty  of  Verdun  between  the  three  sons  of  Lewis  I. 
The  East  Frankish  kingdom  assigned  to  Lewis  (the  Ger- 
man) is  the  origin  of  the  German  kingdom  of  later  days. 

855  Lewis  II,  reigning  in  Italy  since  844,  becomes  Emperor. 
Attacks  of  the  Saracens  upon  Italy. 

866  Dispute  between  Pope  Nicholas  I  and  Photius,  Patriarch  of 
Constantinople :  it  ends  -in  a  schism  which  divides  the  two 
churches. 

876  Charles  the  Bald,  king  of  the  West  Franks,  is  crowned  Em- 

peror at  Rome.     He  dies  next  year. 

877  Boso,  husband  of  Irmingard  (daughter  of  the  Emperor  Lewis 

II),  founds  the  kingdom  of  (Cisjurane)  Burgundy  or  Aries 
and  is  recognized  as  king  by  Charles  the  Bald. 


OF   IMPORTANT   EVENTS  XXXV 

888  Death  of  the  Emperor  Charles  the  Fat,  who  had  (during  his 
reign  of  three  years)  reunited  the  dominions  of  Charles  the 
Great.  After  him  they  fall  asunder,  and  the  Carolingian 
Empire  disappears.  Arnulf,  duke  of  Carinthia  (an  illegiti- 
mate descendant  of  Charles),  is  chosen  king  of  the  East 
Franks  (subsequently  Emperor),  and  is  succeeded  by  his 
son  Lewis  the  Child,  who  dies  unmarried,  in  911.  Rudolf 
founds  the  kingdom  of  Transjurane  Burgundy.  West  France 
passes  to  Odo  (grand-uncle  of  Hugh  Capet,  who  becomes 
king  in  987).  Odo  admits  the  suzerainty  of  Arnulf. 

891  Guido  of  Spoleto,  having  overcome  Berengar  of  Friuli,  seizes 
the  throne  of  Italy  and  is  crowned  Emperor  at  Rome. 

894  Arnulf  enters  Italy,  drives  Guido  from  Pavia,  and  is  crowned 
king  of  Italy. 

896  Arnulf  marches  to  Rome  and  is  crowned  Emperor. 
901-25  Repeated  invasions  of  Germany  and  Italy  by  the  Magyars: 
the  Germans  pay  a  sort  of  tribute  to  them  from  925  to  933 : 
raids  continue  in  Italy. 

91 1  Conrad,  duke  of  Franconia,  is  chosen  king  of  the  East  Franks. 

919  Henry  (the  Fowler),  duke  of  the  Saxons,  is,  on  Conrad's  death, 
chosen  king  of  the  East  Franks  or  Germans.  He  was, 
through  females,  great-great-grandson  of  Charles  the  Great, 
and  a  man  of  proved  ability  and  uprightness. 

928  Henry  the  Fowler  attacks  the  Slavs  beyond  the  Elbe,  defeats 
them,  and  constructs  a  fort  at  Brannibor,  which  grows  into 
the  March  of  Brandenburg :  he  makes  the  Czechs  of  Bohe- 
mia his  tributaries. 

933  Henry,  having  organized  and  trained  his  forces,  attacks  and 
defeats  the  Magyar  invaders  in  Saxony,  and  strengthens  the 
eastern  frontiers  of  Germany. 

936  Death  of  Henry :  his  son  Otto  (the  Great)  is  chosen  to  succeed 
him  as  king  of  the  East  Franks,  and  is  crowned  at  Aachen. 

951  Adelheid  of  Burgundy,  widow  of  Lothar  king  of  Italy,  asks 
help  from  Otto  against  Berengar  king  of  Italy :  Otto  relieves 
the  castle  of  Canosa,  where  she  had  taken  refuge,  marries 
her,  and  makes  Berengar  his  vassal. 

955  Great  defeat  of  the  Magyars  by  Otto  on  the  Lech,  near  Augs- 
burg. He  conquers  the  Slavs  between  the  Elbe  and  the  Oder, 
and  strengthens  the  East  March,  afterwards  the  principality 
of  Austria. 


xxxvi  CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE 

962  Otto,  having  deposed  Berengar  and  taken  to  himself  the  king- 
dom of  Italy,  is  crowned  Emperor  at  Rome  by  Pope  John  XII. 

972  The  East  Roman  Emperor  John  Tzimiskes  makes  peace  with 

Otto  I  and  recognizes  his  title :  Theophano  (daughter  of 
the  Emperor  Romanus  II)  is  married  at  Rome  to  Otto  I's 
son  Otto  (afterwards  the  Emperor  Otto  1 1)  :  both  are  crowned 
by  the  Pope. 

973  Otto  the  Great  dies  and  is  succeeded  by  Otto  II,  in  whose 

reign  the  disorders  of  Germany,  repressed  by  Otto  I,  grow 
worse,  and  the  Slavs  again  harry  the  north-eastern  borders. 

982  War  of  Otto  II  against  the  Saracens  in  Southern  Italy :  he  is 

defeated  and  escapes  with  difficulty. 

983  Death  of  Otto  II :  he  is  succeeded  by  his  only  son  Otto  III, 

who  had  been  chosen  in  his  father's  lifetime :  the  Empress 
dowager  Theophano  acts  as  regent  till  her  death  in  991. 
987  Lewis  V,  king  of  the  West  Franks,  the  last  of  the  Carolingian 
line,  dies  and  is  succeeded  by  Hugh  Capet,  duke  of  France. 
996  Otto  III   marches  to   Rome,  makes  his  cousin  Bruno  Pope 
(Gregory  V)  and  is  crowned  by  him.     Subsequent  revolts 
of  the  Romans  against  him  are  suppressed,  and  on  the  death 
of  Gregory  V  he  procures  the  election  of  Gerbert  as  Pope 
(Sylvester  II)  in  999. 

looo  The  Magyars  having  now  embraced  Christianity,  Otto  gives 
his  cousin  Gisela  in  marriage  to  their  king  Stephen,  and 
sends  him  the  crown  thereafter  known  as  the  crown  of  St. 
Stephen. 

1002  Death  of  Otto  III  at  Paterno  (under  Mount  Soracte,  near 
Rome)  :  his  second  cousin  Henry  duke  of  Bavaria  (great- 
grandson  of  Henry  the  Fowler)  succeeds,  after  some  diffi- 
culty, in  getting  himself  chosen  king  of  Germany  by  the 
Bavarians,  Lotharingians,  Swabians,  and  Saxons  succes- 
sively, and  is  crowned  at  Aachen. 

1004  Henry  enters  Italy,  defeats  Ardoin  marquis  of  Ivrea  who  had 
made  himself  king  there,  and  is  crowned  king  at  Pavia. 

1014  Henry  re-enters  Italy,  meeting  with  little  opposition,  although 
some  of  the  cities  had  continued  to  recognize  Ardoin,  and 
is  crowned  Emperor  at  Rome  by  Pope  Benedict  VIII.  The 
kingdom  of  Italy  thenceforward  goes  with  the  Empire. 

1024  Henry  II  (the  Saint)  dies  (he  was  canonized  in  1152  by  Pope 
Eugenius  III,  and  his  wife  Cunigunda  was  subsequently 


•  OF  IMPORTANT  EVENTS  xxxvii 

canonized  by  Pope  Innocent  III)  :  a  great  assembly  of  the 
German  princes  held  on  the  banks  of  the  Rhine  below 
Worms  chooses  Conrad  duke  of  Franconia  (surnamed  the 
Salic)  to  be  king.  He  was  a  descendant  in  the  female  line 
of  Otto  the  Great. 

1026  Conrad   (II  of  Germany)   enters  Italy,  where  attempts  had 

been  made  to  set  up  members  of  the  French  royal  house  as 
king :  he  is  crowned  king  of  Italy  at  Pavia. 

1027  Conrad  is  crowned  Emperor  at  Rome,  in  the  presence  of  Cnut 

king  of  England  and  Denmark  and  of  Rudolf  king  of  Bur- 
gundy, who  escort  him  to  his  lodgings.  Quarrel  between 
the  German  troops  and  the  Romans  in  which  many  of  the 
latter  are  slain. 

1032-3  Death  of  Rudolf  king  of  Burgundy :  Conrad  II  obtains  the 
kingdom  in  pursuance  of  arrangements  made  with  Rudolf, 
and  is  recognized  by  the  nobles  and  bishops.  The  practical 
independence  of  the  great  lay  vassals  of  the  Empire  and 
prelates  in  the  Saone  and  Rhone  valleys,  and  in  the  country 
between  the  Jura  and  the  Pennine  Alps,  dates  from  this  time, 
because  these  districts  lay  far  from  the  centre  of  German 
power. 

1035-8  Troubles  in  Italy :  Heribert  archbishop  of  Milan  resists  the 
Emperor :  Conrad  II  fails  to  reduce  the  rebels,  but  at  Rome 
restores  Pope  Benedict  IX,  whom  the  Romans  had  expelled. 
He  loses  great  part  of  his  army  by  disease. 

1039  Death  of  Conrad  II :  he  is  succeeded  by  his  son  Henry  (III 
of  Germany),  surnamed  The  Black,  who  had  been  chosen 
king  of  Germany  in  his  lifetime. 

1046  Henry  III  enters  Italy  :  is  crowned  at  Milan,  deposes  two  rival 
Popes  and  obtains  the  resignation  of  a  third,  secures  the 
election  of  Pope  Clement  II,  and  is  crowned  Emperor  by 
him  at  Rome. 

1041  Norman  adventurers  under  the  sons  of  Tancred  of  Hauteville 
begin  to  carry  on  war  against  the  East  Roman  Empire  in 
Southern  Italy,  and  ultimately  (1071)  win  the  whole 
country. 

1051  Dispute  between  Pope  Leo  IX  and  the  Patriarch  of  Constan- 
tinople, the  latter  refusing  to  admit  the  superiority  of  the 
See  of  Rome.  A  schism  results  which  lasts  till  the  Council 
of  Florence  in  1438-9. 


xxxviii  CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE 

1053  The  Normans  defeat  and  capture  Pope  Leo  IX,  who  had 
marched  against  them  ;  they  presently  set  the  Pope  free,  and 
restore  the  lands  taken  from  the  See  of  Rome.  In  1059 
Robert  Wiscard,  now  the  chief  of  the  Normans,  who  had 
owned  himself  vassal  to  the  Chair  of  St.  Peter  for  his  con- 
quests in  Calabria  and  Apulia,  is  created  by  Pope  Nicholas  II 
duke  of  Apulia  and  Calabria. 

1056  Death  of  Henry  III :  he  is  succeeded  by  his  son  Henry,  then 
six  years  of  age,  who  had  been  already  chosen  and  crowned 
king. 

1059  Pope  Nicholas  II  lays  down  new  rules  for  papal  elections,  vest- 
ing the  primary  choice  in  the  cardinals,  while  reserving  the 
rights  of  the  clergy  and  people  of  Rome,  and  of  the  Em- 
peror Henry  IV,  to  give  their  consent. 

1071  The  East  Roman  Emperor  Romanus  Diogenes  is  defeated 
and  captured  at  Manzikert  by  the  Turkish  Sultan  Alp  Arslan : 
the  Turks  begin  the  conquest  of  Asia  Minor. 

1073-4  Great  revolt  of  the  Saxons  against  the  Emperor,  who  after  a 
struggle  overcomes  them.  They  revolt  again,  and  peace  is 
not  restored  till  1097. 

1075  Quarrel  of  Henry  with  Pope  Gregory  VII  (elected  in  1073) 
over  the  investiture  of  clerics.  The  Pope  excommunicates 
the  Emperor  (1076). 

1077  Henry  submits  to  Gregory  at  Canosa  and  is  absolved,  but  soon 
after  strife  is  renewed ;  a  rival  Emperor  (Rudolf  of  Swabia) 
is  chosen  in  Germany  against  Henry,  and  civil  war  follows 
there,  while  an  anti-pope  is  elected  against  Gregory. 

1081  Henry  enters  Italy,  besieges  and  after  three  years  captures 
Rome  (except  the  castle  of  St.  Angelo,  where  Gregory  VII 
holds  out)  :  he  is  crowned  Emperor  by  his  anti-pope. 

1084  Robert  Wiscard,  summoned  by  Gregory,  enters  Rome ;  it  is 
subsequently  sacked  by  his  troops  ;  destruction  and  ultimate 
desolation  of  the  parts  of  the  city  lying  on  the  Aventine  and 
Coelian  hills :  Gregory  returns  with  Robert  to  South  Italy, 
and  dies  at  Salerno  (1085). 

On  the  death  of  Rudolf,  Hermann  of  Luxemburg  is  set  up 
against  Henry  as  ruler  in  Germany ;  he  abandons  the 
contest  in  1088. 

1090  Conquest  of  Sicily  from  the  Muslims  by  the  Normans  is  com- 
pleted ;  South  Italy  and  Sicily  are  ultimately  erected  into  a 


OF  IMPORTANT  EVENTS  xxxix 

kingdom.     Roger  is  crowned  king  of  Sicily  in  1130:  Pope 
Innocent  II  yields  South  Italy  by  a  treaty  in  1139. 

1096  Beginning  of  the  First  Crusade  :  the  Crusaders  take  Jerusalem 
in  1099,  and  make  Godfrey  of  Bouillon,  duke  of  Lorraine, 
king.- 

1105-6  Henry  IV  is  dethroned  by  his  second  son,  Henry,  who,  sup- 
ported by  the  papal  party,  becomes  king  as  Henry  V,  and  is 
crowned  at  Mentz.  (Henry  IV  dies  in  1106.) 

II 1 1  Henry  V  descends  into  Italy,  enters  Rome  to  be  crowned, 
seizes  Pope  Paschal  II  (upon  the  failure  of  an  agreement  by 
which  the  Church  was  to  surrender  its  possessions,  and 
Henry  consequently  his  right  of  investiture)  keeps  him  and 
the  cardinals  prisoners,  and  extorts  a  treaty  admitting  the 
Emperor's  right  of  clerical  investiture.  He  is  then  crowned 
by  the  Pope,  and  returns  to  Germany.  The  Pope,  when 
released,  finds  that  the  clergy  will  not  accept  the  treaty  and 
is  obliged  to  disavow  it.  The  contest  over  the  investiture 
of  ecclesiastics  by  laymen  continues. 

1 122  Concordat  of  Worms  between  Pope  Calixtus  II  and  the  Em- 
peror, by  which  the  question  of  investitures  is  compromised. 

1125  Henry  V  dies,  leaving  no  male  heir:  Lothar,  duke  of  Saxony, 
is  chosen  to  succeed  him.  A  quarrel  breaks  out  between 
Lothar  and  Frederick  of  Hohenstaufen,  duke  of  Swabia, 
which  is  the  origin  of  the  long  strife  of  the  houses  of  Welf 
(so  called)  and  Waiblingen  (Waiblingen  was  a  small  town 
belonging  to  the  Hohenstaufen,  whose  name  is  said  to  have 
been  on  one  occasion  used  as  a  battle-cry).  Conrad,  duke 
of  Franconia,  brother  of  Frederick  of  Swabia,  disputes  the 
throne  with  Lothar,  enters  Italy,  and  is  crowned  at  Monza 
and  Milan.  The  hostility  of  the  Pope,  however,  prevents 
him  from  maintaining  authority  there,  and  he  and  Frederick 
ultimately  submit. 

1133  Lothar  II  is  crowned  Emperor  in  Rome  by  Pope  Innocent  II. 
He  had  held  the  Pope's  stirrup  at  an  interview  in  Germany, 
and  desiring  papal  support  he  took  an  oath  to  defend  the 
Holy  See,  and  acknowledged  papal  rights  over  part  of  the 
territories  that  had  belonged  to  the  Countess  Matilda.  This 
was  afterwards  represented  as  a  recognition  of  papal  suze- 
rainty ;  but  Lothar  maintained  the  rights  secured  by  the 
Concordat  of  Worms. 


xl  CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE 

1138  Lothar  II,  after  a  successful  war  against  the  Normans  of  South 
Italy,  dies  in  Tyrol :  Conrad  of  Hohenstaufen,  duke  of 
Swabia,  is  chosen  king  in  his  stead,  to  the  displeasure  of  the 
Saxons  and  Bavarians,  with  whom  he  soon  finds  himself  at 
war. 

1144  Revolt  of  the  Romans  against  Pope  Innocent  II:  preaching 
of  Arnold  of  Brescia  :  republican  institutions  are  reorganized 
and  envoys  sent  to  Conrad  III  to  obtain  his  support. 

1146  Conrad  III  starts  on  the  Second  Crusade,  but  returns  having 
lost  his  army  and  effected  little. 

1152  Death  of  Conrad,  who  had  never  carried  out  his  intention 
of  receiving  the  imperial  crown  at  Rome.  His  nephew 
Frederick  of  Hohenstaufen,  duke  of  Swabia,  is  chosen  king 
and  crowned  at  Aachen  with  the  general  approval  of  the 
nation. 

1154  Frederick  enters  Italy,  where  he  finds  Milan  and  other  Lom- 

bard cities  disobedient. 

1155  Frederick  I  meets  Pope  Hadrian  IV  outside  Rome,  and  after 

some  resistance  consents  to  hold  the  stirrup  for  him,  and  at 
his  demand  seizes  and  puts  to  death  Arnold  of  Brescia. 
He  is  crowned  by  the  Pope  in  St.  Peter's,  but  is  unable  to 
force  his  way  into  Rome. 

1157  Diet  at  Besan9on,  where  the  great  Burgundian  vassals  do 
homage  to  the  Emperor.  Indignation  at  the  assertion  made 
by  the  papal  legate  that  the  Empire  was  held  from  the 
See  of  Rome. 

1158-62  Frederick  carries  on  war  with  the  recalcitrant  Lombard  cities 
and  destroys  Milan.     Diet  at  Roncaglia. 

1160  Double  election  to  the  Papacy  of  Alexander  III  and  Victor  IV. 
Frederick  sides  with  Victor.  Long  conflict  between  Alex- 
ander and  the  Empire,  the  Pope  supporting  the  North 
Italian  cities  against  Frederick.  Alexander,  at  first  driven 
to  take  refuge  in  France,  returns  to  Rome  (1165)  and 
deposes  the  Emperor. 

1167-76  Further  strife  in  Italy,  ending  with  the  defeat  of  Frederick's 
army  by  the  allied  cities  at  Legnano. 

1 177  Reconciliation  of  Frederick  and  Pope  Alexander  III  at  Venice. 

1180- 1  Henry  (the  Lion)  duke  of  Saxony,  who  had  failed  to  support 

Frederick  in  the  campaign  of  Legnano,  is  condemned  by  the 

Diet  at  Wurzburg  to  lose  his  possessions  :   he  resists  by 


OF   IMPORTANT   EVENTS  xli 

force  of  arms,  but  is  ultimately  obliged  to  submit,  losing  his 
duchies  of  Saxony  and  Bavaria,  but  receiving  back  some 
part  of  his  estates. 

1183  Peace  of  Constance  between  Frederick  and  the  confederated 
Lombard  cities :  they  secure  internal  self-government  and 
the  right  of  making  peace  and  war,  and  are  thenceforward 
practically  independent. 

1186  Marriage  of  Henry,  eldest  son  of  Frederick,  to  Constantia, 
daughter  of  Roger  II  king  of  Sicily,  and  heiress  of  the 
Norman  kingdom. 

1189  Frederick  leads  a  German  host  (estimated  at  100,000  men) 
on  the  Third  Crusade.  After  traversing  Bulgaria  and  Asia 
Minor,  he  is  drowned  in  the  river  Kalykadnus  in  Cilicia,  in 
1190  ;  and  is  succeeded  by  his  eldest  son,  Henry  VI,  who 
had  been  already  (as  a  child)  chosen  king  and  crowned 
at  Aachen. 

1189  Death  of  William  the  Good,  king  of  Sicily.     The  Sicilian 

kingdom  and  South  Italy  are  claimed  by  Henry  in  right 
of  his  wife :  but  he  is  resisted  by  Tancred  (illegitimate  son 
of  Roger,  so  n  of  Roger  1 1) ,  and  does  not  master  Sicily  till  1 1 94. 

1190  Foundation  of  the  Teutonic  Order  of  Knights  by  Frederick 

(son  of  the  Emperor  Frederick  I)  while  commanding  the 
German  Crusaders  after  his  father's  death. 

1191  Henry  VI  is  crowned  Emperor  at  Rome. 

1194  Richard  I  king  of  England  (made  prisoner  in  1192  by  the 
duke  of  Austria)  surrenders  the  kingdom  of  England  to  the 
Emperor  and  receives  it  back  as  a  fief  on  his  liberation. 
1 197  Death  of  Henry  VI  at  Messina  :  he  had  caused  his  son 
Frederick,  a  child  of  three,  to  be  chosen  king  two  years 
previously. 

1198-1208  Disputed  election.  Philip  of  Hohenstaufen,  duke  of  Swabia, 
brother  of  Henry  VI,  had  at  first  tried  to  rule  as  regent  on 
behalf  of  his  infant  nephew  Frederick,  but  when  this  proves 
impossible  in  face  of  the  opposition  of  Pope  Innocent  III, 
he  secures  his  own  election  by  a  large  majority  of  the  great 
princes.  The  Pope,  however,  raises  up  a  party  against  him 
and  procures  the  election  of  Otto  of  Brunswick,  son  of  Henry 
the  Lion  (late  duke  of  Saxony)  and  of  Matilda  (sister  of 
Richard  I  of  England).  Civil  war  in  Germany,  terminated 
by  the  murder  of  Philip  in  1208. 


xlii  CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE 

1204  A  French  army  and  Venetian  fleet  starting  for  the  Fourth 
Crusade  besiege  and  take  Constantinople,  and  set  up 
Baldwin  as  East  Roman  Emperor.  The  East  Romans 
found  an  empire  at  Nicaea  which  lasts  till  1261,  when  they 
recover  Constantinople. 

1208  Otto,  on  his  rival's  death,  is  formally  re-elected  Emperor, 
and  next  year  visits  Rome,  and  is  crowned  Emperor  by 
Innocent  III. 

1210-18  Otto  IV  quarrels  with  Innocent,  who  encourages  Frederick 
(son  of  Henry  VI)  to  put  himself  at  the  head  of  the  party 
in  Germany,  which  is  hostile  to  Otto  IV.  Frederick  is 
elected  king  and  crowned  at  Mentz  (1212)  and  at  Aachen 
(1215).  Otto  IV  retires  to  his  dominions  in  Brunswick, 
and  dies  (1218)  after  an  unsuccessful  war  against  Philip 
of  France. 

1216  The  Order  of  St.  Dominic  is  recognized  by  the  Pope,  and  in 
1223  the  Order  of  St.  Francis  is  also  recognized. 

1220  Frederick  II,  by  a  solemn  act  (subsequently  called  a  Prag- 
matic Sanction)  issued  in  a  Diet  at  Frankfort,  extends  large 
powers  to  the  ecclesiastical  princes.  A  similar  Sanction 
some  years  later  extends  the  privileges  of  the  secular 
princes.  He  is  crowned  emperor  at  Rome.  Disputes 
soon  after  arise  between  him  and  the  Pope,  nominally 
arising  out  of  his  delay  in  setting  out  on  a  crusade. 

1226  The  Lombard  cities  renew  their  league  against  the  Emperor. 

1227  Open  breach  between  Frederick  and  Pope  Gregory  IX,  who 

excommunicates  him. 

1228-9  Frederick  II  sets  out  on  his  Crusade,  reaches  Jerusalem,  and 
returns,  having  made  a  favourable  treaty  with  the  Sultan  of 
Egypt. 

1228-40  Establishment  of  the  Teutonic  Knights  on  the  eastern  frontier 
of  Germany  and  conquest  by  them  of  the  Lithuanians  of 
Old  Prussia. 

1230  Reconciliation  of  the  Pope  and  Frederick  II,  who  is  absolved. 
1235  War  between  the  Emperor  and  the  Lombard  League,  the  Pope 
supporting  the  cities.    It  lasts  during  the  rest  of  Frederick  IPs 
reign. 

1235-40  Strife  of  Gregory  IX  and  the  Emperor,  whom  he  excom- 
municates (1239),  tnen  preaches  a  crusade  against  him, 
and  tries  to  stir  up  an  insurrection  in  Germany. 


OF  IMPORTANT  EVENTS  xliii 

1241  Beginnings  of  the  Hanseatic  League  of  cities. 

1242  A  Mongol  host  invades  Germany  and  is  defeated  in  Moravia 

and  Austria. 

1243  Election  of  Pope  Innocent  IV  (a  teacher  of  law  at  Bologna), 

who  soon  resumes  hostilities  against  the  Emperor,  and  in 
Councils  held  at  Lyons  (1244-5)  excommunicates  and 
deposes  him,  and  excites  some  of  the  German  princes  to 
set  up  Henry  of  Thuringia,  and  afterwards  (1247)  William 
of  Holland,  as  pretenders  to  the  crown.  William  is  crowned 
at  Aachen,  and  maintains  his  pretensions  till  his  death  in 
1256.  Anarchy  in  Germany. 

1250  Frederick  II,  who  had  been  constantly  engaged  in  fighting  the 
Guelf  party  in  Italy,  dies  in  Apulia.  He  is  succeeded  by  his 
son  Conrad  IV,  who  had  been  chosen  king  in  his  father's 
lifetime  (1237). 

1250-4  Conrad  IV,  excommunicated  by  Pope  Innocent,  enters  Italy 
and  maintains  the  war  there  against  the  cities  and  the  papal 
forces,  while  William  of  Holland  is  generally  recognized  in 
northern  and  middle  Germany.  Both  there  and  in  Italy 
anarchy  continues.  There  has  been,  however,  during  Fred- 
erick's reign  a  great  increase  in  the  population  and  wealth  of 
the  German  cities,  which  had  been  favoured  by  Frederick  I. 

1254  Death  of  Conrad  IV :  the  rights  to  the  German  territories  of 
the  Hohenstaufen  and  to  the  kingdom  of  Sicily  pass  to  his 
son  Conrad  (Conradin),  a  child  of  two,  while  his  illegiti- 
mate brother  Manfred  continues  the  war  in  South  Italy 
against  the  Pope  and  the  Guelfs,  or  papal  party,  till  his  death 
in  the  battle  of  Benevento  in  1266. 

1256-7  An  interregnum  follows  the  death  of  William  of  Holland, 
which  ends  with  the  double  election  of  Richard  earl  of 
Cornwall  (brother  of  the  English  king  Henry  III),  and,  by 
another  section  of  the  electors,  a  little  later,  of  Alfonso  X, 
king  of  Castile.  Richard  crosses  to  Germany  and  is  crowned 
at  Aachen.  Alfonso  remains  in  Spain.  Richard  retains  the 
title  of  Emperor  till  his  death  in  1271,  but  is  only  thrice  in 
Germany  and  never  exercises  effective  authority  there. 

1261  Michael  Palaeologus  recovers  Constantinople  from  the  Latin 
Emperor  and  re-establishes  an  Orthodox  dynasty  there. 

1268  Conradin,  last  male  descendant  of  the  Swabian  emperors,  enters 
Italy  with  a  German  army,  but  is  defeated  at  Tagliacozzo 


xliv  CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE 

by  the  army  of  Charles  of  Anjou  and  beheaded  at 
Naples. 

1273  Rudolf  count  of  Hapsburg  is  chosen  king  and  crowned  at 

Aachen :  he  conciliates  the  Pope,  and  never  enters  Italy. 
1277-82  Rudolf  deprives  Ottocar  king  of  Bohemia  of  the  Austrian  terri- 
tories and  after  a  time  bestows  them,  as  well  as  Styria  and 
Carniola,  on  his  sons,  laying  the  foundation  of  the  territorial 
power  of  the  house  of  Hapsburg. 

1291  Death  of  Rudolf.  He  had  failed  to  secure  the  fixing  of  the 
imperial  crown  as  hereditary  in  his  house,  and  even  the  elec- 
tion of  his  son  Albert ;  the  electors  choose  Adolf  count  of 
Nassau,  a  man  of  ability  and  energy  but  of  slender  resources. 

1298  A  revolt  organized  by  Albert  of  Hapsburg  and  the  archbishop 
of  Mentz  breaks  out.  Adolf  is  deposed,  but  resists :  he  is 
killed  by  the  hand  of  Albert  in  battle  at  Gollheim  near 
Worms,  having  never  entered  Italy  to  receive  the  imperial 
crown. 

Albert  of  Hapsburg,  duke  of  Austria,  is  chosen  king  and 
crowned  at  Aachen :  Pope  Boniface  VIII  refuses  to  recognize 
him. 

1302  Dante  Alighieri  with  the  party  of  the  White  Guelfs  is  driven 

into  exile  from  Florence  :  he  writes  his  De  Monarchia  prob- 
ably a  little  before,  or  in,  1311  or  1312,  and  dies  at  Ravenna 
in  1321. 

1303  Boniface  VIII,  being  engaged  in  a  fierce  strife  with  Philip  IV 

of  France,  becomes  reconciled  to  Albert  and  invites  him  to 
come  to  Rome  to  be  crowned :  which  however  Albert  never 
does.  Boniface  is  seized  at  Anagni  by  an  armed  band  in  the 
service  of  Philip  IV  of  France,  and  dies  a  few  days  afterwards. 

1305  Clement  V  (a  Gascon  by  birth)  becomes  Pope.  Moved  by 
the  constant  rebellions  and  disorders  of  Rome  for  a  long 
time  previously,  he  removes  the  Papal  Court  to  Avignon, 
where  it  remains  for  seventy  years. 

1307-8  League  of  the  inhabitants  of  Schwytz  Uri  and  Unterwalden  to 
defend  themselves  against  the  oppression  of  the  officers  of 
Albert  of  Hapsburg :  it  is  the  germ  of  the  Swiss  Confedera- 
tion. Albert  marches  against  the  Swiss,  but  is  murdered  on 
the  banks  of  the  Reuss  by  his  nephew  John  in  1308. 

1308  Henry  count  of  Luxemburg  is  chosen  king :  he  presently 
secures  the  kingdom  of  Bohemia  for  his  family :  and  he 


OF   IMPORTANT   EVENTS  xlv 

recognizes  the  exemption  of  the  three  Swiss  Cantons  from 
the  feudal  rights  of  the  counts  of  Hapsburg. 

1310  Henry  VII,  summoned  to  put  an  end  to  the  disorders  and 
civil  wars  of  Italy,  where  most  of  the  cities  had  fallen  under 
the  dominion  of  tyrants,  crosses  the  Alps,  is  crowned  king 
of  Italy,  fights  his  way  into  Rome,  where  he  is  resisted  by  a 
faction  of  the  nobles  and  by  the  troops  of  the  king  of  Naples, 
and  is  crowned  Emperor  by  the  legates  of  Pope  Clement  V. 
He  carries  on  war  against  the  Guelfs  of  Italy  till  his  death 
in  1313- 

1313-14  Double  election  of  Lewis  duke  of  Bavaria  and  Frederick  duke 
of  Austria,  followed  by  a  civil  war  between  them. 

1315  The  Swiss  Confederates  defeat  the  Austrian  troops  at  Mor- 
garten,  and  thereby  secure  their  freedom. 

1322  Lewis  of  Bavaria  defeats  Frederick  at  Muhldorf  and  takes  him 
prisoner:  the  civil  war  however  continues  till  1325. 

1324  Open  breach  between  Pope  John  XXII  and  Lewis  IV.  John 
excommunicates  him.  Lewis  appeals  to  a  General  Council. 
Lewis  obtains  the  support  of  the  English  philosopher  Will- 
iam of  Ockham  and  other  Franciscans,  and  of  Marsilius  of 
Padua :  they  write  treatises  against  the  Pope. 

1327-8  Lewis  enters  Italy,  is  welcomed  at  Rome  by  the  citizens ;  is 
crowned  Emperor  by  the  Syndics  whom  they  appoint  for  the 
purpose.  In  a  solemn  meeting  of  the  people  he  deposes 
John  XXII,  and  crowns  a  Franciscan  friar  whom  the  people 
had  chosen  Pope.  Finding  the  Romans  fickle  and  his  forces 
insufficient,  he  leaves  Rome,  and,  in  1329,  returns  to  Ger- 
many, while  Rome  submits  to  the  Pope.  Lewis  subsequently 
endeavours,  but  in  vain,  to  make  peace  with  John  XXII,  and 
afterwards  with  Benedict  XII. 

1338  The  Germanic  Diet  at  Frankfort  solemnly  protests  against  the 
pretensions  of  the  Pope  to  supremacy  over  the  Empire  and 
declares  that  the  Empire  is  held  from  God  alone.  The  Elec- 
tors at  Rhense  issue  a  similar  declaration. 

1343  Pope  Clement  VI  renews  the  decrees  of  his  predecessors  against 
Lewis  IV  ;  Lewis  sends  envoys  to  Avignon ;  but  the  Pope's 
exorbitant  demands  are  refused  by  the  Germanic  Diet :  the 
Pope  excommunicates  Lewis,  and  sets  up  Charles  king  of 
Bohemia  as  rival  to  the  throne.  Charles  is  chosen  king  by 
the  three  ecclesiastical  and  by  two  lay  electors. 


xlvi  CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE 

1347-54  Cola  di  Rienzo  effects  a  revolution  at  Rome,  and  is  named 
Tribune  with  the  assent  of  the  papal  legate :  he  falls  from 
power  after  some  months,  escapes  to  the  Apennines,  goes  to 
Bohemia,  is  imprisoned  there  by  the  Emperor  Charles  IV, 
and  sent  to  Avignon,  then  sent  back  to  Rome  by  Pope 
Clement  VI  with  limited  powers,  and  is  killed  in  a  popular 
outbreak  in  1354. 

1347  Death  of  Lewis  IV :  Charles  king  of  Bohemia  (grandson  of 
the  Emperor  Henry  VII)  is  opposed  by  several  of  the  elec- 
tors, who  choose  in  succession  king  Edward  III  of  England, 
who  refuses  (his  Parliament  objecting),  Frederick  marquis 
of  Meissen  (whom  Charles  buys  off),  and  Gunther  of 
Schwartzburg,  who  accepts,  but  dies  soon  after.  Charles 
then  has  himself  re-chosen  and  re-crowned  at  Aachen. 

1354  Charles  is  crowned  king  of  Italy  at  Milan  and  afterwards  Em- 
peror at  Rome  by  the  Cardinal-bishop  of  Ostia,  commissioned 
thereto  by  the  Pope.  He  shews  himself  submissive  to  the 
Pope,  quits  Rome  forthwith  and  returns  promptly  across  the 
Alps. 

1356  Charles  IV  promulgates  in  a  Diet  held  at  Nurnberg  the  famous 
Constitution  called  the  Golden  Bull  (Aurea  Build),  which 
settles  the  composition  of  the  Electoral  College,  the  proceed- 
ings in  imperial  elections,  and  the  privileges  of  the  electors. 

1365  Charles  IV  visits  the  Pope  at  Avignon  and  is  crowned  king  of 
Burgundy.  (It  is  the  last  Burgundian  coronation.)  He 
also  visits  the  king  of  France. 

1378  Death  of  Charles  IV.     His  son  Wenzel  king  of  Bohemia, 

elected  and  crowned  two  years  before,  succeeds  him. 
The  election  of  two  rival  Popes,  Urban  VI  and  Clement  VII, 
leads  to  the  Great  Schism  of  the  West,  which  lasts  till  the 
Council  of  Constance. 

1384-8  War  breaks  out  between  the  League  of  cities  (formed  in 
South  Germany  some  years  before)  and  the  League  of 
princes  :  general  disorder  in  Germany. 

1395  Wenzel  confers  the  title  of  Duke  of  Milan  on  Gian  Galeazzo 
Visconti,  tyrant  of  that  city. 

1400  Wenzel's  neglect  of  his  imperial  duties  and  dissolute  habits 
having  provoked  much  displeasure,  especially  that  of  the 
clergy,  who  resent  some  of  his  ecclesiastical  measures,  four 
electors  (the  three  Rhenish  archbishops  and  the  Count 


OF   IMPORTANT   EVENTS  xlvii 

Palatine)  pronounce  him  to  be  deposed,  and  choose  Rupert 
(of  Wittelsbach),  Count  Palatine  of  the  Rhine :  he  is 
crowned  at  Cologne,  and  recognized  over  most  of  Germany, 
but  Wenzel  retains  his  title  and  the  kingdom  of  Bohemia 
till  1411,  when  he  makes  way  for  his  brother  Sigismund. 

1409  Council  of  Pisa  summoned  to  endeavour  to  put  an  end  to  the 

Great  Schism. 

1410  Death  of  Rupert,  who,  like  Wenzel,  had  never  been  crowned 

at  Rome,  though  he  had  made  an  (unfortunate)  expedition 
into  Italy  in  1401. 

1410-11  Disputed  election  of  Sigismund  king  of  Hungary  (brother  of 
Wenzel)  and  of  Jobst  margrave  of  Moravia  (cousin  of 
Wenzel).  Death  of  Jobst:  Sigismund  is  again  chosen  and 
(in  1414)  crowned  at  Aachen. 

1414  Meeting  of  the  Council  of  Constance :  it  burns  John  Huss 
(although  Sigismund  had  given  him  a  safe-conduct),  de- 
poses the  rival  Popes  John  XXIII  and  Benedict  XIII,  pro- 

,  cures  the  abdication  of  a  third  rival  Pope,  Gregory  XII, 

secures  the  election  of  a  new  Pope,  Martin  V,  and  breaks  up 
in  1418. 

1415-17  Sigismund  confers  the  Electorate  of  Brandenburg  on  Frederick 
of  Hohenzollern,  Burggrave  of  Niirnberg  (ancestor  of  the 
present  house  of  Prussia) . 

1431  Sigismund  enters  Italy,  is  crowned  king  at  Milan  and  Emperor 
at  Rome  (1433). 

1437  Death  of  Sigismund,  who  had  done  something  to  restore  the 

credit  of  the  Empire,  but  had  not  recovered  any  of  its  power. 

1438  Albert  of  Hapsburg,  duke  of  Austria,  is  elected  king  of  the 

Romans,  and  soon  afterwards  becomes  king  of  Hungary  and 
Bohemia. 

1438-9  A  Council  held  first  at  Ferrara,  then  at  Florence,  is  attended 
by  the  East  Roman  Emperor  John  Palaeologus  :  it  effects  a 
nominal  reconciliation  of  the  Greek  and  Latin  churches. 
Subsequent  efforts  of  the  Easterns  to  obtain  armed  help 
from  the  West  against  the  Turks  prove  ineffective. 

1439  Death  of  Albert  II.     Frederick  of  Hapsburg,  duke  of  Styria, 

is  elected  to  succeed  him. 

1452  Frederick  III  is  crowned  Emperor  at  Rome.     It  is  the  last 

imperial  coronation  there. 

1453  Constantinople   taken   by  the  Turks.      END  OF  THE   EAST 


xlviii  CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE 

ROMAN   EMPIRE.     The  (Christian)  Empire  of  Trebizond 
lingers  on  till  1460,  when  it  is  overthrown  by  Mohammed  II. 

1454  A  congress  at  Ratisbon  deliberates  on  the  proposal  of  a  cru- 
sade against  the  Turks,  but  nothing  follows. 

1477  Marriage  of  Maximilian,  son  of  Frederick  III,  to  Mary  of  Bur- 
gundy, heiress  of  Duke  Charles  the  Bold.  The  Netherlands 
and  Franche  Comte'  are  thus  acquired  by  the  house  of  Haps- 
burg.  (Philip,  offspring  of  this  marriage,  marries  Juana  of 
Spain,  daughter  of  Ferdinand  of  Aragon  and  Isabella  of 
Castile :  their  son  is  Charles,  afterwards  the  Emperor 
Charles  V.) 

1485-1512  Efforts  to  improve  the  constitution  of  the  Empire,  at  first  led 
by  Berthold  Elector  of  Mentz,  are  made  at  successive 
Diets. 

1486  Bartholomew  Diaz  rounds  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope. 

1489  The  Imperial  cities  are  definitely  recognized  as  members  of  the 
Germanic  Diet. 

1492  Discovery  of  America  by  Christopher  Columbus. 

1493  Death  of  Frederick  III :    his  son,  Maximilian   of  Hapsburg 

(already  elected),  succeeds  him. 
Vasco  da  Gama  reaches  India  by  sea :  beginning  of  the  oceanic 

empire  of  Portugal. 
1508  Maximilian   obtains    the   Pope's   permission   to   call  himself 

Emperor  Elect. 
1508  Luther  begins  to  teach  at  Wittenberg. 

1518  Zwingli  is  established  as  People's  Priest  at  Zurich. 

1519  Death  of  Maximilian  I:  his  grandson  Charles  (king  of  Spain) 

is  elected  Emperor. 
1520-1  Luther,  excommunicated   by  the   Pope,  burns  the   Bull :    he 

appears  before  Charles  V  at  the  Diet  of  Worms,  and  is  put 

to  the  ban  of  the  Empire. 
1524-5  Insurrection  of  the  peasants  in  South  Germany. 

1529  The  German  Reformers  make  their  'Protest'  in  the  Diet  of 

Speyer. 

1530  Florence  captured  by  the  troops  of  Charles  V :   the  Medici 

finally  established  as  its  rulers. 

1531  Battle  of  Kappel,  in  which  Zwingli  is  killed. 

The  leading  Protestant  princes  form  the  Smalkaldic  League 

against  the  Emperor. 
1534  The  Society  of  Jesus  established  by  Ignatius  Loyola. 


OF  IMPORTANT  EVENTS  xlix 

1545-63  Sittings  of  the  Council  of  Trent,  which  are  several  times  sus- 
pended for  long  intervals  during  these  eighteen  years. 

1546  Death  of  Martin  Luther. 

War  between  the  Smalkaldic  League  and  the  Emperor:  the 
princes  of  the  League  are  defeated  at  Miihlberg  (1547)  and 
harshly  treated. 

1552  The  territories  of  the  bishops  of  Metz,  Toul,  and  Verdun  arc 
occupied  by  France :  Charles  V  attempts  in  vain  to  recover 
them. 

Maurice  Elector  of  Saxony  attacks  the  Emperor :  chases  him 
out  of  Tyrol  and  restores  the  Protestant  cause  in  Germany. 

1555  Charles  V  abdicates  and  dies  soon  after  in  Spain  (1558)  :  he  is 

succeeded  by  his  brother  Ferdinand,  previously  elected. 
Proclamation  of  the  so-called  '  Religious  Peace  of  Augsburg,1 
settled  at  the  Diet  held  there  in  1554;  it  allows  each  Ger- 
man prince  to  enforce  on  his  subjects  the  religion  he  had 
adopted :  permits  the  Lutheran  princes  to  retain  all  eccle- 
siastical estates  occupied  before  1552,  but  strips  of  his  lands 
and  dignities  any  prelate  forsaking  the  Roman  communion. 

1560  The  Protestants,  invited  by  the  Emperor  to  the  Council  of 
Trent,  refuse  to  attend.  The  Council  closes  in  1563,  having 
settled  and  defined  the  Catholic  faith. 

1563-8  The  Elector  of  Brandenburg  secures  for  his  house  the  succes- 
sion of  the  dukedom  of  Prussia. 

1564  Death  of  the  Emperor  Ferdinand  I :  his  son,  Maximilian  II, 
previously  elected,  succeeds,  and  endeavours  to  conciliate 
the  Protestants. 

1576  Death  of  Maximilian  II :  his  son,  Rudolf  II,  becomes  Emperor. 

1608  Formation  in  Germany  of  a  Protestant  Union  of  Princes  and  a 
Catholic  League  of  Princes. 

1612  Death  of  Rudolf  II :  his  brother  Matthias  becomes  Emperor. 

1618  A  conflict  in  Bohemia,  putting  the  torch  to  the  inflammable 

material  all  over  the  central  and  western  parts  of  the  Empire, 
causes  the  outbreak  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War. 

1619  Death  of  Matthias :  his  cousin,  Ferdinand  of  Styria,  becomes 

Emperor. 

1621  Frederick  the  (Protestant)  Elector  Palatine,  who  had  been 
chosen  king  of  Bohemia,  is  driven  out,  and  (1623)  deprived 
of  his  Electorate,  which  is  given  by  the  Emperor  to  (the 
Catholic)  Maximilian  of  Bavaria. 


I  CHRONOLOGICAL   TABLE 

1628  The  successes  of  Wallenstein,  Ferdinand  II's  chief  general, 
against  the  Protestants  are  arrested  by  the  resistance  of  the 
town  of  Stralsund.  Sweden  prepares  to  enter  the  war. 

1630  Gustavus   Adolphus,  king  of  Sweden,    enters  Germany  and 
turns  the  balance  of  the  war  in  favour  of  the  Protestants.    He 
defeats  Wallenstein  at  Lu'tzen  in  1632,  but  is  himself  killed. 
1640-88  Reign  of  Frederick  William,  'the  Great  Elector,1  in  the  Electo- 
rate of  Brandenburg,  the  power  of  which  he  greatly  increases. 

1648  The  Thirty  Years1  War  is  ended,  after  protracted  negotiations, 
by  the  Treaties  of  Osnabriick  and  Munster  (Treaty  of  West- 
phalia) . 

1692  An  Electorate  of  Hanover  (the  ninth,  as  the  Count  Palatine 
had  recovered  his  electoral  rights  in  1648)  is  conferred  on 
the  Duke  of  Brunswick-Luneburg  (father  of  the  English 
king  George  I),  and  the  title  of  Arch  Treasurer  of  the  Em- 
pire is  attached  to  it. 

1703-1  Frederick  Elector  of  Brandenburg  becomes  King  of  Prussia 
by  the  sanction  of  the  Emperor. 

1740  Death  of  the  Emperor  Charles  VI.     Extinction  of  the  male 

line  of  Hapsburg. 

Accession  of  Frederick  II  (the  Great)  to  the  throne  of  Prussia. 

The   intrigues   of  France,  pursuing  her  usual   anti-Austrian 

policy,  procure  the  election  as  Emperor  of  Charles,  Elector 

of  Bavaria  (Charles  VII).     A  war  follows,  in  which  Charles 

is  driven  from  his  dominions. 

1745  Death  of  Charles  VII.  Francis,  duke  of  Lorraine,  who  had 
married  Maria  Theresa,  daughter  of  Charles  VI,  is  elected 
Emperor  and  crowned  at  Frankfort. 

1756-63  The  Seven  Years'  War.  in  which  Frederick  of  Prussia  success- 
fully resists  Austria,  France,  and  Russia. 

1765  Death  of  the  Emperor  Francis  I :  his  son  Joseph,  elected  in 
his  lifetime,  becomes  Emperor. 

1772  First  Partition  of  Poland  between  Austria,  Russia,  and  Prussia. 

1781  Joseph  II,  among  other  reforms,  proclaims  religious  toleration 
and  attempts  to  reduce  clerical  power.  The  Pope  comes 
next  year  to  Vienna,  but  effects  nothing.  Joseph  visits 
Rome,  but  is  not  crowned  there. 

1786  Death  of  Frederick  the  Great  of  Prussia. 

1789  Meeting  of  the  French  States  General  at  Versailles :  beginning 
of  the  Revolution. 


OF   IMPORTANT   EVENTS  li 

1792-5  War  between  the  French  Republic  and  Prussia. 

1792-7  War  between  the  French  Republic  and  Austria.    Austria  cedes 

Lombardy  and  receives  the  territories  of  Venice. 
1801  By  the  Peace  of  Luneville,  closing  a  second  war  between  Aus- 
tria and  the  French,  the  internal  constitution  of  the  Em- 
pire is   completely  altered   and  additional  territory  taken 
from  it. 

1804  Napoleon  Bonaparte  becomes  Emperor;  he  considers  himself 

the  successor  of  Charlemagne  as  Emperor  of  the  West. 

1805  The  overthrow  of  Austria  and  Russia  by  Napoleon  at  Auster- 

litz  is  followed  by  the  formation  of  the  Confederation  of  the 
Rhine  under  the  protection  of  France. 

1806  Abdication  of  the  Emperor  Francis  II.     END  OF  THE  HOLY 

ROMAN  EMPIRE.  • 

1814-15  Fall  of  the  Napoleonic  Empire. 

Congress  of  Vienna :  establishment  of  the  Germanic  Confed- 
eration. 
1820  The  Vienna  Final  Act  varies  and  completes  the  constitution 

of  the  Confederation. 

1830  Revolution  in  France  :  establishment  of  a  constitutional  mon- 
archy under  Louis  Philippe. 
1833-5  Establishment  of  the  German  Customs  Union  (Zollverein), 

which  includes  all  the  German  States  except  Austria. 
1837  Great  Britain  ceases,  by  the  passing  of  Hanover  away  from 
the  British  Crown  to  Ernest  Augustus  (brother  of  the  late 
King  William  IV),  to  be  a  member  of  the  Germanic  Con- 
federation. 

1847  Creation  of  a  Parliament  for  the  whole  Prussian  monarchy. 

1848  Revolution  in  France:  a  Republic  is  set  up,  which  in  1851-2 

is  turned  first  into  a  ten  years'  Presidency,  then  into  an 
Empire,  under  Louis  Napoleon  Bonaparte. 

1848-50  Revolution  in  Vienna,  risings  in  the  German  capitals:  a 
national  Parliament  meets  in  Frankfort  and  offers  the  title 
of  Emperor  to  the  king  of  Prussia,  who  refuses.  The  Con- 
federation is  re-established  in  1851. 

1859  Formation  of  the  popular  league  called  the  National  Union  in 
Germany,  followed  (1862)  by  the  rival  Reform  Union  in 
the  interests  of  conservatism  and  of  Austria. 

1859-60  War  of  France  and  the  kingdom  of  Sardinia  against  Austria  : 
Lombardy  is  ceded  and  added  to  Piedmont ;  the  people  expel 


lii  CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE 

the  minor  Italian  princes,  whose  territories  pass  to  the  king 
of  Sardinia ;  he  thereupon  becomes  king  of  Italy :  Garibaldi 
drives  the  Bourbons  out  of  Sicily  and  Naples.  The  French, 
who  had  occupied  Rome  in  1849,  still  hold  it  for  the  Pope. 

1862  Bismarck  becomes  chief  minister  of  Prussia,  and  engages  in  a 
long  struggle  with  the  Prussian  Parliament  over  its  right  to 
control  military  expenditure. 

1863-4  A  conflict,  passing  into  war,  begins  between  Denmark  and  the 
German  Confederation,  Prussia,  and  Austria,  over  the  suc- 
cession to  Schleswig-Holstein :  defeat  of  the  Danes,  who 
cede  these  duchies  to  Prussia  and  Austria. 

1866  War  of  Prussia  and  Italy  against  Austria,  and  also  of  Prussia 
against  some  of  the  States  of  the  Confederation  :  victory  of 
Prussia.  Austria  is  compelled  to  withdraw  from  the  Con- 
federation, which  ceases  to  exist.  Prussia,  annexing  four 
German  States,  forms  a  North  German  Confederation  under 
her  presidency  out  of  the  Northern  and  Middle  States,  and 
subsequently  concludes  military  treaties  with  Bavaria,  Wiir- 
temberg,  Baden,  and  Hessen-Darmstadt. 

1870-1  War  between  the  French  Empire  and  Germany,  the  South 
German  States  siding  with  the  North  German  Confedera- 
tion. France  cedes  Alsace  and  part  of  Lorraine  to  Ger- 
many :  the  North  German  Confederation  is  extended  by  the 
adhesion  of  the  South  German  States  to  include  all  Germany 
(Austria  still  remaining  outside),  and  is  reconstituted  as  a 
GERMAN  EMPIRE  with  the  king  of  Prussia  as  Hereditary 
Emperor.  The  Italian  troops  enter  Rome,  which,  with  the 
territory  round  it  that  had  remained  to  the  Pope,  becomes 
part  of  the  kingdom  of  Italy,  the  Pope  retiring  to  the  Vati- 
can, where  he  has  since  remained. 


THE    HOLY   ROMAN    EMPIRE 


THE  HOLY  ROMAN  EMPIRE 


CHAPTER   I 

INTRODUCTORY 

OF  those  who  in  August,  1 806,  read  in  the  newspapers  CHAP.  I. 
that  the  Emperor  Francis  II  had  announced  to  the  Ger- 
manic Diet  his  resignation  of  the  imperial  crown  there  were 
probably  few  who  reflected  that  the  oldest  political  institu- 
tion in  the  world  had  come  to  an  end.  Yet  it  was  so.  The 
Empire  which  a  note  issued  by  a  diplomatist  on  the  banks 
of  the  Danube  extinguished  was  the  same  which  the  crafty 
nephew  of  Julius  had  won  for  himself,  against  the  powers 
of  the  East,  beneath  the  cliffs  of  Actium ;  and  which  had 
preserved  almost  unaltered,  through  eighteen  centuries  of 
time,  and  through  the  greatest  changes  in  extent,  in  power, 
and  in  character,  a  title  and  pretensions  from  which  their 
ancient  meaning  had  long  since  departed.  Nothing  else 
so  directly  linked  the  old  world  to  the  new  —  nothing  else 
displayed  so  many  strange  contrasts  of  the  present  and  the 
past,  and  summed  up  in  those  contrasts  so  much  of  Euro- 
pean history.  From  the  days  of  Constantine  till  far  down 
into  the  Middle  Ages  it  was,  conjointly  with  the  Papacy, 
the  recognized  centre  and  head  of  Christendom,  exercising 
over  the  minds  of  men  an  influence  such  as  its  material 
strength  could  never  have  commanded. 

It  is  of  this  influence  and  of  the  causes  that  gave  it 
power  rather  than  of  the  external  history  of  the  Empire 
that  the  following  pages  are  designed  to  treat.  That 


THE   HOLY  ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  i.  history  is  indeed  full  of  interest  and  brilliancy,  of  grand 
characters  and  striking  situations.  But  it  is  a  subject  too 
vast  for  any  single  canvas.  Without  a  minuteness  of  detail 
sufficient  to  make  its  scenes  dramatic,  and  give  us  a  lively 
sympathy  with  the  actors,  a  narrative  history  can  have 
little  value  and  still  less  charm.  But  to  trace  with  any 
minuteness  the  career  of  the  Empire,  would  be  to  write  the 
history  of  Christendom  from  the  fifth  century  to  the  twelfth, 
of  Germany  and  Italy  from  the  twelfth  to  the  nineteenth ; 
while  even  a  narrative  of  more  restricted  scope,  which 
should  attempt  to  disengage  from  a  general  account  of  the 
affairs  of  those  countries  the  events  that  properly  belong 
to  imperial  history,  could  hardly  be  compressed  within  rea- 
sonable limits.  It  is  therefore  better,  declining  so  great  a 
task,  to  attempt  one  simpler  and  more  practicable  though 
not  necessarily  inferior  in  interest ;  to  speak  less  of  events 
than  of  principles,  and  endeavour  to  describe  the  Empire 
not  as  a  State  but  as  an  Institution,  an  institution  created 
by  and  embodying  a  wonderful  system  of  ideas.  In  pur- 
suance of  such  a  plan,  the  forms  which  the  Empire  took  in 
the  several  stages  of  its  growth  and  decline  must  be  briefly 
sketched.  The  characters  and  acts  of  the  great  men  who 
founded,  guided,  and  overthrew  it  must  from  time  to  time 
be  touched  upon.  But  the  chief  aim  of  the  treatise  will  be 
to  dwell  more  fully  on  the  inner  nature  of  the  Empire,  as 
the  most  signal  instance  of  the  fusion  of  Roman  and  Teu- 
tonic elements  in  modern  civilization  :  to  shew  how  such  a 
combination  was  possible ;  how  Charles  and  Otto  were 
led  to  revive  the  imperial  title  in  the  West ;  how  far  during 
the  reigns  of  their  successors  it  preserved  the  memory  of 
its  origin,  and  influenced  the  European  commonwealth  of 
nations. 

Strictly  speaking,  it  is  from  the  year  800  A.D.,  when  a 
King  of  the  Franks  was  crowned  Emperor  of  the  Romans 


INTRODUCTORY 


by  Pope  Leo  III,  that  the  beginning  of  the  Holy  Roman  CHAP.  I. 
Empire  must  be  dated.  But  in  history  there  is  nothing 
isolated,  and  just  as  to  explain  a  modern  Act  of  Parlia- 
ment or  a  modern  conveyance  of  lands  we  must  go  back 
to  the  feudal  customs  of  the  thirteenth  century,  so  among 
the  institutions  of  the  Middle  Ages  there  is  scarcely  one 
which  can  be  understood  until  it  is  traced  up  either  to 
classical  or  to  primitive  Teutonic  antiquity.  Such  a  mode 
of  inquiry  is  most  of  all  needful  in  the  case  of  the  Holy 
Empire,  itself  no  more  than  a  tradition,  a  fancied  revival 
of  departed  glories.  And  thus  one  who  seeks  to  explain 
out  of  what  elements  the  imperial  system  was  formed, 
might  be  required  to  scrutinize  the  antiquities  of  the 
Christian  Church,  to  survey  the  constitution  of  Rome  in 
the  days  when  Rome  was  no  more  than  the  first  of  the 
Latin  cities,  nay,  to  travel  back  yet  further  to  that  Jewish 
theocratic  polity  whose  influence  on  the  minds  of  the 
mediaeval  priesthood  was  necessarily  so  profound.  Prac- 
tically, however,  it  may  suffice  to  begin  by  glancing  at  the 
condition  of  the  Roman  world  in  the  third  and  fourth  cen- 
turies of  the  Christian  era.  We  shall  then  see  the  old 
Empire  with  its  scheme  of  absolutism  fully  matured ;  we 
shall  mark  how  the  new  religion,  rising  in  the  midst  of  a 
hostile  power,  ends  by  embracing  and  transforming  it ; 
and  we  shall  be  in  a  position  to  understand  what  impres- 
sion the  whole  huge  fabric  of  secular  and  ecclesiastical 
government  which  Roman  and  Christian  had  piled  up 
made  upon  the  barbarian  tribes  who  pressed  into  the 
charmed  circle  of  the  ancient  civilization. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   ROMAN   EMPIRE   BEFORE   THE   ENTRANCE   OF   THE   BAR- 

BARIANS 

CHAP.  ii.  THAT  ostentation  of  humility  which  the  subtle  policy  of 
The  Roman  Augustus  had  conceived,  and  the  jealous  hypocrisy  of 
theslcond  Tiberius  maintained,  was  gradually  dropped  by  their  suc- 
century.  cessors,  till  despotism  became  at  last  recognized  in  prin- 
ciple as  the  government  of  the  Roman  Empire.  With  an 
aristocracy  decayed,  a  populace  degraded,  an  army  no 
longer  recruited  from  Italy,  the  semblance  of  liberty  that 
yet  survived  might  be  swept  away  with  impunity.  Repub- 
lican forms  had  never  been  known  in  the  provinces,  and 
the  aspect  which  the  imperial  administration  had  originally 
assumed  there  soon  reacted  on  its  position  in  the  capital. 
Earlier  rulers  had  disguised  their  supremacy  by  making  a 
slavish  senate  the  instrument  of  their  more  cruel  or  arbi- 
trary acts.  As  time  went  on,  even  this  veil  was  with- 
A.D.  193-211.  drawn  ;  and  in  the  age  of  Septimius  Severus  the  Emperor 
stood  forth  to  the  whole  Roman  world  as  the  single  centre 
and  source  of  political  power  and  action.  The  warlike 
character  of  the  Roman  State  was  preserved  in  his  title  of 
Commander  (Imperator) ;  his  provincial  lieutenants  were 
military  governors ;  and  a  more  terrible  enforcement  of 
the  theory  was  found  in  his  practical  dependence  on  the 
army,  at  once  the  origin  and  the  support  of  his  authority. 
But,  as  he  united  in  himself  every  function  of  government, 
his  sovereignty  was  civil  as  well  as  military.  Laws  ema- 

4 


THE  EMPIRE   BEFORE   THE   INVASIONS  5 

nated  from  him ;  all  officials  acted  under  his  commission ;  CHAP.  II. 
the  sanctity  of  his  person  bordered  on  divinity.  This  in- 
creased concentration  of  power  was  mainly  required  by  the 
necessities  of  frontier  defence,  for  within  there  was  more 
decay  than  disaffection.  Few  troops  were  quartered 
through  the  country :  few  fortresses  checked  the  march 
of  armies  in  the  struggles  which  placed  Vespasian  and  (a 
century  later)  Severus  on  the  throne.  The  distant  crash 
of  war  from  the  Rhine  or  the  Euphrates  was  scarcely 
heard  or  heeded  in  the  profound  calm  of  the  Mediterranean 
coasts,  where,  after  the  extinction  of  piracy,  fleets  had 
ceased  to  be  maintained.  No  quarrels  of  race  or  religion 
disturbed  that  calm,  for  all  national  distinctions  were  be- 
coming merged  in  the  idea  of  a  common  Empire.  The 
gradual  extension  of  Roman  citizenship  through  the  Obliteration 
founding  of  coloniae,  first  throughout  Italy  and  then  in 
the  provinces,  the  working  of  the  equalized  and  equalizing 
Roman  law,  the  even  pressure  of  the  government  on  all 
subjects,  the  movements  of  population  caused  by  com-  • 
merce  and  the  slave  traffic,  were  steadily  assimilating  the 
various  peoples.  Emperors  who  were  for  the  most  part 
natives  of  the  provinces  cared  little  to  cherish  Italy  or 
even,  after  the  days  of  the  Antonines,  to  conciliate  Rome. 
It  was  their  policy  to  keep  open  for  every  subject  a  career 
by  whose  freedom  they  had  themselves  risen  to  greatness, 
and  to  recruit  the  senate  from  the  most  illustrious  families 
in  the  cities  of  Gaul,  Spain,  and  Asia.  The  edict  by  A.D.  211-217, 
which  Caracalla  extended  to  all  natives  of  the  Roman 
world  the  rights  of  Roman  citizenship,  though  prompted 
by  no  motives  of  generosity,  proved  in  the  end  a  boon. 
Annihilating  distinctions  of  legal  status  among  freemen,  it 
completed  the  work  which  trade  and  literature  and  tolera- 
tion to  all  beliefs  but  one  were  already  performing,  and 
left,  so  far  as  we  can  tell,  only  one  nation  still  cherishing 


THE    HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


3HAP.  ii.  a  national  feeling.a  The  Jew  was  kept  apart  by  his  re- 
ligion :  but  the  Jewish  people  was  already  dispersed  over 
the  world.  Speculative  philosophy  lent  its  aid  to  this 
general  assimilation.  Stoicism,  with  its  doctrine  of  a 
universal  system  of  nature,  made  minor  distinctions  be- 
tween man  and  man  seem  insignificant :  and  by  its 
teachers  the  idea  of  a  world-commonwealth  whereof  all 
men  are  citizens  was  for  the  first  time  proclaimed.  Alex- 
andrian Neo-Platonism,  uniting  the  tenets  of  many  schools, 
and  bringing  the  mysticism  of  Egypt  and  the  East  into 
connection  with  the  logical  philosophies  of  Greece,  had 
opened  up  a  new  ground  of  agreement  or  controversy  for 

The  capital,  the  minds  of  all  the  world.  Yet  the  commanding  position 
of  the  Roman  city  was  scarcely  shaken.  The  actual  power 
of  her  assemblies  had  indeed  long  since  departed.  Rarely 
were  her  senate  and  people  permitted  to  choose  the  sover- 
eign :  more  rarely  still  could  they  influence  his  policy. 
Neither  law  nor  custom  raised  the  inhabitants  of  the  city 
above  other  subjects,  or  accorded  to  them  any  advantage 
in  the  career  of  civil  or  military  ambition.  As  in  time 
past  Rome  had  sacrificed  domestic  freedom  in  making 
herself  the  mistress  of  others,  so  now  in  becoming  the 
Universal  State,b  she,  the  conqueror,  had  descended  to 
the  level  of  the  conquered.*5  But  the  sacrifice  had  not 
wanted  its  reward.  From  her  came  the  laws  and  the 
language  that  had  overspread  the  world : d  at  her  feet 

*  As  to  this  gift  of  citizenship,  reference  may  be  made  to  an  essay  on  the 
Extension  of  Roman  and  English  Law  throughout  the  World  in  the  author's 
Studies  in  History  and  Jurisprudence,  Vol.  I. 

b  As  it  was  said,  Urbs  fiebat  Orbis. 

c  Under  Diocletian,  the  provincial  land  tax  and  provincial  system  of  ad- 
ministration were  introduced  into  Italy,  and  the  four  imperial  residences  were 
Milan,  Treves,  Sirmium  (in  Pannonia),  and  Nicomedia  (in  Bithynia). 

d  Condita  est  civitas  Roma  per  quam  Deo  placuit  orbem  debellare  terrarum 
et  in  unam  societatem  reipublicae  legumque  longe  lateque  pacare.  —  St 
Augustine,  De  Civil.  Dei,  xviii.  22. 


THE   EMPIRE   BEFORE   THE   INVASIONS  7 

the  nations  laid  the  offerings  of  their  labour :  she  was  the  CHAP.  11. 
head  of  the  Empire  and  of  civilization,  and  in  riches,  fame, 
and  splendour  far   outshone  as  well   the   other   cities   of 
that  time  as  the  fabled  glories  of  Babylon  or  Persepolis. 

Scarcely  had  these  slowly-working  influences  brought 
about  this  unity,  when  other  influences  began  to  threaten 
it.  New  foes  assailed  the  frontiers ;  while  the  loosening 
of  the  structure  within  was  shewn  by  the  long  struggles 
for  power  which  followed  the  death  or  deposition  of  each 
successive  emperor.  In  the  period  of  anarchy  after  the 
fall  of  Valerian,  generals  were  raised  by  their  armies  in  A.D.  253-270. 
every  part  of  the  Empire,  and  ruled  great  provinces  as 
monarchs  apart,  owning  no  allegiance  to  the  possessor 
of  the  capital.  The  breaking-up  of  the  Western  half  of 
the  Empire  into  separate  kingdoms  might  have  been 
anticipated  by  two  hundred  years  had  the  barbarian  tribes 
on  the  borders  been  bolder,  or  had  there  not  arisen  in 
Diocletian  a  prince  active  and  skilful  enough  to  bind  up  Diocletian, 
the  fragments  before  they  had  lost  all  cohesion,  meeting  A-D>  284-3os- 
altered  conditions  by  new  remedies.  The  policy  he  adopted 
of  dividing  and  localizing  authority  recognized  the  fact  that 
the  weakened  heart  could  no  longer  make  its  pulsations 
felt  to  the  body's  extremities.  He  parcelled  out  the 
supreme  power  among  four  monarchs,  ruling  as  joint- 
emperors  in  four  capitals,  and  then  sought  to  give  it  a 
factitious  strength  by  surrounding  it  with  an  oriental  pomp 
which  his  earlier  predecessors  would  have  scorned.  The 
sovereign's  person  became  more  sacred,  and  was  removed 
further  from  the  subject  by  the  interposition  of  a  host  of 
officials.  The  prerogative  of  Rome  was  menaced  by  the 
rivalry  of  Nicomedia,  and  the  nearer  greatness  of  Milan. 
Constantine  trod  in  the  same  path,  developing  the  system  constantine, 
of  titles  into  a  sort  of  nobility,  separating  the  civil  from  A-D-  306-337- 
the  military  functionaries,  placing  counts  and  dukes  along 


8  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  ii.  the  frontiers  and  in  the  cities,  making  the  household 
larger,  its  etiquette  stricter,  its  offices  more  dignified, 
though  to  a  Roman  eye  degraded  by  their  attachment 
to  the  monarch's  person.  The  crown  became,  for  the  first 
time,  the  fountain  of  honour. 

These  expedients  proved  insufficient  to  prop  the  totter- 
ing fabric  of  imperial  administration.  Taxation,  which 
grew  always  heavier  as  the  number  of  persons  who  bore 
it  was  reduced,  depressed  the  aristocracy : e  population 
decreased,  agriculture  withered,  serfdom  spread :  it  was 
found  more  difficult  to  raise  native  troops  and  to  pay  any 
troops  whatever.  The  removal  by  Constantine  of  the 
imperial  residence  to  Byzantium,  if  it  prolonged  the  life 
of  the  Eastern  half  of  the  Empire,  shook  the  Empire  as 
a  whole,  by  accelerating  the  separation  of  East  and  West. 
By  that  removal  Rome's  self-abnegation  that  she  might 
Romanize  the  world  was  completed  ;  for  though  the  new 
capital  preserved  her  name,  and  followed  her  customs  and 
precedents,  yet  now  the  imperial  sway  ceased  to  be  con- 
nected with  the  city  which  had  created  it.  Thus  did  the 
idea  of  Roman  monarchy  become  more  universal ;  for, 
having  lost  its  local  centre,  it  subsisted  no  longer  by  his- 
toric right  only,  but,  so  to  speak,  naturally,  as  a  part  of  an 
order  of  things  which  a  change  in  external  conditions 
seemed  incapable  of  disturbing.  Henceforth  the  idea  of  a 
Roman  Empire  might  stand  unaffected  by  the  disasters  of 
the  city.  And  though,  after  the  partition  of  the  Empire 

<.D.  364.  had  been  confirmed  by  Valentinian  I,  and  finally  settled 
on  the  death  of  Theodosius  the  Great,  the  seat  of  the 

A.D.39S.  Western  government  was  removed  first  to  Milan  and  then 
to  Ravenna,  neither  event  destroyed  Rome's  prestige,  nor 

e  According  to  the  vicious  financial  system  that  prevailed,  the  curiales  in 
each  city  were  required  to  collect  the  taxes,  and  when  there  was  a  deficit,  to 
supply  it  from  their  own  property. 


THE   EMPIRE   BEFORE   THE   INVASIONS  9 

the  notion  of  a  single  imperial  nationality  common  to  all  CHAP.  II. 
her  subjects.     The  Syrian,  the  Pannonian,  the  Briton,  the 
Spaniard,  still  called  himself  a  Roman.* 

For  that  imperial  nationality  was  now  beginning  to  be  Christianity. 
supported  by  a  new  and  vigorous  power.  The  emperors 
had  indeed  opposed  Christianity  as  disloyal  and  revolution- 
ary :  had  more  than  once  put  forth  their  whole  strength 
to  root  it  out.  But  the  unity  of  the  Empire,  and  the  ease 
of  communication  through  its  parts,  had  favoured  the 
spread  of  the  new  faith :  persecution  had  scattered  the 
seeds  more  widely,  had  forced  on  it  a  firm  organization, 
had  given  it  martyr-heroes  and  a  history.  When  Con- 
stantine,  partly  perhaps  from  a  genuine  moral  sympathy,  • 
yet  doubtless  also  in  the  well-grounded  belief  that  he  had 
more  to  gain  from  the  zealous  support  of  its  professors 
than  he  could  lose  by  the  aversion  of  those  who  still 
cultivated  a  languid  paganism,  extended  toleration  to 
Christianity  and  ultimately  embraced  it  himself,  it  was 
already  a  great  political  force,  able,  and  not  more  able 
than  willing,  to  repay  him  by  aid  and  submission.  Yet  ^^  tfie 
the  league  was  struck  in  no  mere  mercenary  spirit,  for  state. 

'  See  the  eloquent  passage  of  Claudian,  In  secundum  consulatum  Stilichonis, 
129  sqq.,  and  especially  the  following  lines  (150—160) : 
'  Haec  est  in  gremio  victos  quae  sola  recepit, 

Humanumque  genus  communi  nomine  fovit, 
,  Matris,  non  dominae,  ritu;   civesque  vocavit 

Quos  domuit,  nexuque  pio  longinqua  revinxit. 

Huius  pacificis  debemus  moribus  oranes 

Quod  veluti  patriis  regionibus  utitur  hospes : 

Quod  sedem  mutare  licet :  quod  cernere  Thulen 

Lusus,  et  horrendos  quondam  penetrare  recessus: 

Quod  bibimus  passim  Rhodanum,  potamus  Oronten, 

Quod  cuncti  gens  una  sumus.     Nee  terminus  unquam 

Romanae  ditionis  erit.' 

St.  Patrick  (a  younger  contemporary  of  Claudian),  in  his  Epistle  to  Coroticus, 
speaks  of  the  Christians  of  Gaul  as  Romans. 


10  THE    HOLY    ROMAN    EMPIRE 

CHAP.  ii.  the  league  was  inevitable.  Of  the  evils  and  dangers 
incident  to  such  an  alliance  of  the  civil  and  the  ecclesi- 
astical authority  as  that  which  grew  up  in  the  century 
after  Constantine,  there  was  as  yet  no  experience  :  of 
that  antagonism  between  Church  and  State  which  to  a 
modern  appears  so  natural,  there  was  not  even  an  idea. 
In  the  Psalms  and  the  historical  books  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment (the  influence  of  which  on  the  early  Christians  was 
profound)  the  unity  of  the  nation  stands  based  upon  reli- 
gion :  Israel  is  the  people  of  Jehovah,  owes  Him  collective 
as  well  as  individual  worship,  conquers  and  prospers  by 
His  help.  Among  the  Romans  religion  had  been  an 
integral  part  of  the  political  constitution,  a  matter  far 
more  of  national  or  tribal  or  family  feeling  than  of  per- 
sonal devotion  to  a  spiritual  power.g  Both  in  Israel  and 
at  Rome  the  mingling  of  religious  with  civic  patriotism 
had  been  harmonious,  giving  strength  and  elasticity  to  the 
whole  body  politic.  So  perfect  a  union  was  now  no  longer 
possible  in  the  Roman  Empire,  for  the  Christian  com- 
munity had  already  a  governing  body  of  its  own  in  those 
rulers  and  teachers  on  whom  the  growth  of  sacramental- 
ism,  and  of  sacerdotalism  its  necessary  consequence,  was 
every  day  conferring  more  and  more  power,  while  mark- 
ing them  off  more  sharply  from  the  mass  of  the  Christian 
people.  Since  therefore  the  ecclesiastical  organization 
could  not  be  identical  with  the  civil,  it  became  its 
counterpart.  Suddenly  called  from  danger  and  ignominy 
to  the  seat  of  power,  and  finding  her  inexperience  per- 
plexed by  a  sphere  of  action  vast  and  varied,  the  Church 
was  compelled  to  continue  the  process  on  which  she  had 
already  entered  of  framing  her  government  upon  the 
model  of  the  secular  administration.  Where  her  own 
machinery  was  defective,  as  in  the  case  of  doctrinal  dis- 

*  In  the  Roman  jurisprudence,  ius  sacrum  is  a  branch  of  ius  publicum. 


THE   EMPIRE   BEFORE   THE   INVASIONS  1 1 

putes  affecting  the  whole  Christian  world,  she  sought  the  CHAP.  II. 
interposition  of  the  Sovereign  ;  in  all  else  she  strove  not 
to  sink  into,  but  to  reproduce  for  her  own  ecclesiastical 
purposes,  the  imperial  system.  And  just  as  with  the 
extension  of  the  Empire  all  the  independent  rights  of 
districts,  towns,  or  tribes  had  disappeared,  so  now  the 
primitive  freedom  and  diversity  of  individual  Christians 
and  local  churches,  already  circumscribed  by  the  frequent 
struggles  against  heresy  and  schism,  was  finally  overborne 
by  the  idea  of  one  Visible  Catholic  Church,  uniform  in 
faith  and  ritual ;  uniform  too  in  her  relation  to  the  civil 
power  and  the  increasingly  oligarchical  character  of  her 
government.  Thus,  under  the  combined  force  of  doctrinal 
theory  and  practical  needs,  there  shaped  itself  a  hierarchy 
of  patriarchs,  metropolitans,  and  bishops,  their  jurisdiction, 
although  still  chiefly  spiritual,  recognized,  and  after  a  time 
enforced,  by  the  laws  of  the  State,  their  provinces  and 
dioceses  usually  corresponding  to  the  administrative  divi- 
sions of  the  Empire.  As  no  patriarch  yet  enjoyed  more 
than  an  honorary  supremacy,  the  earthly  head  of  the 
Church  —  so  far  as  she  could  be  said  to  have  a  head  — 
was  virtually  the  Emperor  himself.  The  presumptive 
right  to  intermeddle  in  religious  affairs  which  he  had  in 
heathen  times  derived  from  the  office  of  Pontifex  Maxi- 
mus,  regularly  assumed  by  the  successors  of  Augustus, 
was  readily  admitted ;  and  the  clergy,  preaching  the  duty 
of  obedience  now  as  it  had  been  preached  even  in  the 
days  of  Nero  and  Decius,h  were  well  pleased  to  see  him 

h  'Let  every  soul  be  subject  unto  the  higher  powers.  For  there  is  no 
power  but  from  God :  the  powers  that  be  are  ordained  of  God.  Whosoever 
therefore  resisteth  the  power,  resisteth  the  ordinance  of  God'  (Rom.  xiii.  l). 
'  Submit  yourselves  to  every  ordinance  of  man  for  the  Lord's  sake :  whether 
it  be  to  the  Emperor  as  supreme;  or  unto  Governors,  as  unto  them  that  are 
sent  by  him  for  the  punishment  of  evildoers,  and  for  the  praise  of  them  that 
do  well'  (r  Pet.  ii.  13).  So  Tertullian,  writing  circ.  A.D.  200,  says:  '  Sed 


12 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  ii.  preside  in  General  Councils,  issue  edicts  against  heresy, 
and  testify  even  by  arbitrary  measures  his  zeal  for  the 
advancement  of  the  faith  and  the  overthrow  of  pagan 
rites.1  But  though  the  tone  of  the  Church  remained 
humble,  her  strength  waxed  greater,  nor  were  occasions 
wanting  which  revealed  the  future  that  was  in  store  for 
her.  The  resistance  to  the  Emperor  of  St.  Athanasius 
(Archbishop  of  Alexandria),  and  his  final  triumph  in  the 
long  struggle  against  the  Arians,  proved  that  the  new 
society  could  put  forth  a  power  of  opinion  such  as  had 
never  been  known  before  :  the  abasement  of  Theodosius 
the  Emperor  before  Ambrose  the  Archbishop  admitted 
the  supremacy  of  spiritual  authority.  In  the  decrepitude 
of  old  institutions,  in  the  barrenness  of  literature  and  the 
feebleness  of  art,  it  was  to  the  Church  that  the  life  and 
feelings  of  the  people  sought  more  and  more  to  attach 
themselves  ;  and  when  in  the  fifth  century  the  horizon 
grew  black  with  clouds  of  ruin,  those  who  watched  with 
despair  or  apathy  the  approach  of  irresistible  foes,  fled  for 
comfort  to  the  shrine  of  a  religion  which  even  those  foes 
revered. 

But   that  which  we   are   above  all  here   concerned  to 
tnat  tnis  church   system,  demanding  a  more 
rigid  uniformity  in  doctrine  and  organization,  making  more 
and  more  vital  the  notion  of  a  visible  body  of  worshippers 
united  by  participation  in  the  same  sacraments,  maintained 


it  embraces 

°the  imperial    remar^ 
idea. 


quid  ego  amplius  de  religione  atque  pietate  Christiana  in  imperatorem  quern 
necesse  est  suspiciamus  ut  eum  quern  Dominus  noster  elegerit.  Et  merito 
dixerim,  noster  est  magis  Caesar,  ut  a  nostro  Deo  constitutus."  —  Apologet. 
cap.  34. 

*  Eusebius  describes  Constantine  as  a  sort  of  '  Summus  episcopus  '  :  old  nt 
KOIVOS  firlffKovos  £K  0eoC  Ka.6effra.iJ.tvos  vvvboovs  T£>V  rov  Qeov  \eirovpyuv  ffvve- 
KpoTfi.  And  Constantine  (according  to  Eusebius)  described  himself  to  the 
bishops  in  a  similar  way  :  Vfjt'is  ruv  efou  TTJS  ^/cK\ij<rias  tyti  de  rC>v  £KTOS  virt> 
Qeov  KaOeffTO./j.e'vQS  a.v  etrfv. 


THE   EMPIRE   BEFORE  THE   INVASIONS  13 

and  propagated  afresh  the  feeling  of  a  single  Roman  people  CHAP.  n. 
throughout  the  world.     Christianity  as  well  as  civilization 
became  conterminous  with  the   Roman  Empire.3     To  be 
a  Roman  was  to  be  a  Christian  :  and  this  idea  soon  passed 
into  the  converse.     To  be  a  Christian  was  to  be  a  Roman. 

J  See  the  book  of  Optatus,  Bishop  of  Milevis  (circ.  A.D.  370),  Contra  Dona- 
tistas.  '  Non  enim  respublica  est  in  ecclesia,  sed  ecclesia  in  republica,  id  est, 
in  imperio  Romano,  cum  super  imperatorem  non  sit  nisi  solus  Deus '  (p.  999 
of  vol.  ii  of  Migne;  Patrologiae  Cursus  completus).  The  treatise  of  Optatus 
is  full  of  interest,  as  shewing  the  growth  of  the  idea  of  the  visible  Church, 
and  of  the  primacy  of  Peter's  chair,  as  constituting  its  centre  and  representing 
its  unity.  In  the  end  of  the  fifth  century,  the  only  Christian  countries  out- 
side the  limits  of  the  Empire  were  Ireland  and  Armenia,  and  Armenia,  main- 
taining a  precarious  existence  beside  the  great  Persian  monarchy  of  the 
Sassanid  kings,  had  been  for  a.  long  time  virtually  dependent  on  the  Roman 
power. 


CHAPTER   III 

THE   BARBARIAN   INVASIONS 

CHAP.  in.  UPON  a  world  so  constituted  did  the  barbarians  of  the 
The  bar-  North  descend.  From  the  dawn  of  history  they  shew  as 
a  dim  background  to  the  warmth  and  light  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean coasts,  changing  little  while  kingdoms  rise  and  fall 
in  the  South,  only  thought  on  when  some  hungry  swarm 
comes  down  to  pillage  or  to  settle.  It  is  always  as  foes 
that  they  are  known.  The  Romans  never  forgot  the  in- 
vasion of  Brennus  ;  and  their  fears,  renewed  by  the  irrup- 
B.C.  101.  tion  of  the  Cimbri  and  Teutones,  could  not  let  them  rest 
till  the  extension  of  the  frontier  to  the  Rhine  and  the 
Danube  removed  Italy  from  immediate  danger.  A  little 
more  perseverance  under  Tiberius,  or  again  under  Hadrian, 
would  probably  have  reduced  all  Germany  as  far  as  the 
Baltic  and  the  Oder.  But  the  politic  or  jealous  advice  of 
Augustus  a  was  followed,  and  it  was  only  along  the  frontiers 
that  Roman  arts  and  culture  affected  the  Teutonic  races. 
Commerce  was  brisk  ;  Roman  envoys  penetrated  the  forests 
to  the  courts  of  rude  chieftains ;  adventurous  barbarians 
entered  the  provinces,  sometimes  to  admire,  oftener,  like 
the  brother  of  Arminius,b  to  take  service  under  the  Roman 
flag,  and  rise  to  a  distinction  in  the  legion  which  some 

a  '  Addiderat  consilium  coercendi  intra  terminos  imperil,  incertum  metu 
an  per  invidiam.' — Tac.  Ann.  i.  II. 
l>  Tac.  Ann.  ii.  9. 


THE   BARBARIAN   INVASIONS  15 

feud  denied  them  at  home.  This  was  found  even  more  CHAP.  in. 
convenient  by  the  hirer  than  by  the  hired ;  till  by  degrees 
barbarian  mercenaries  came  to  form  the  largest,  and  cer- 
tainly the  most  efficient,  part  of  the  Roman  armies.  The 
bodyguard  of  Augustus  had  been  so  composed ;  the  prae- 
torians were  generally  selected  from  the  bravest  frontier 
troops,  most  of  them  German ;  the  practice  could  not  but 
increase  with  the  extinction  of  the  free  peasantry,  the 
growth  of  villenage,  and  the  effeminacy  of  all  classes. 
Emperors  who  were,  like  Maximin,  themselves  sprung  from 
a  barbarian  stock,  encouraged  a  system  by  whose  means 
they  had  risen,  and  whose  advantages  they  knew.  After 
Constantine,  the  levies  from  outside  the  Empire  form  the 
majority  of  the  troops  ;  after  Theodosius,  a  Roman  is  the  Admitted  to 
exception.  The  soldiers  of  the  Eastern  Empire  in  the  time  Ro™an  titl" 

1  *•  and  honours. 

of  Arcadius  are  almost  all  Goths,  vast  bodies  of  whom  had 
been  settled  in  the  provinces ;  while  in  the  West,  Stilicho c  A.D.  405. 
can  oppose  Rhodogast  only  by  summoning  the  German 
auxiliaries  from  the  frontiers.  Along  with  this  practice 
there  had  grown  up  another,  which  did  still  more  to  make 
the  barbarians  feel  themselves  members  of  the  Roman 
State.  The  pride  of  the  old  republic  had  been  exclusive, 
but  under  the  Empire  the  maxim  was  accepted  that  neither 
birth  nor  race  should  exclude  a  subject  from  any  post 
which  his  abilities  deserved.  This  principle,  which  had 
removed  all  obstacles  from  the  path  of  the  Spaniard  Trajan, 
the  Thracian  Maximin,  the  Arabian  Philip,  was  afterwards 
extended  to  the  conferring  of  honour  and  power  on  persons 
who  did  not  even  profess  to  have  passed  through  the  grades 
of  Roman  service,  but  remained  leaders  of  their  own  tribes. 
Ariovistus  had  been  soothed  by  the  title  of  Friend  of  the 
Roman  People ;  in  the  third  century  the  insignia  of  the 

c  Stilicho,  the  bulwark  of  the  Empire,  seems  to  have  been  himself  a  Van- 
dal by  extraction. 


THE   HOLY  ROMAN  EMPIRE 


CHAP.  in.  consulship*1  were  conferred  by  Gallienus  on  Naulobatus  a 
Herulian  chief :  Crocus  and  his  Alemanni  entered  as  an 
independent  body  into  the  service  of  Rome ;  along  the 
Rhine  whole  tribes  received,  under  the  name  of  Laeti, 
lands  within  the  provinces  on  condition  of  military  service  ; 
and  the  foreign  aid  which  the  Sarmatian  had  proffered  to 
Vespasian  against  his  rival,  and  Marcus  Aurelius  had 
indignantly  rejected  in  the  war  with  Cassius,  became  the 
usual,  at  last  the  sole  support  of  the  Empire,  in  civil  as  well 
as  in  external  strife. 

Thus  in  many  ways  was  the  old  antagonism  broken 
down  —  Romans  admitting  barbarians  to  rank  and  office, 
barbarians  catching  something  of  the  manners  and  culture 
of  their  neighbours.  And  thus  when  the  final  movement 
came,  and  the  Teutonic  tribes  slowly  established  them- 
selves through  the  provinces,  they  entered  not  as  savage 
strangers,  but  as  settlers  knowing  something  of  the  system 
into  which  they  came,  and  not  unwilling  to  be  considered 
its  members  ;  despising  the  degenerate  provincials  who 
struck  no  blow  in  their  own  defence,  but  full  of  respect 
for  the  majestic  power  which  had  for  so  many  centuries 
confronted  and  instructed  them. 

Their  feel-          Great  during  all  these  ages,  but  greatest  when  they  were 
mgs  towards    actually  traversing  and  settling  down  in  the  Empire,  must 

the  Roman  J 

Empire.  have  been  the  impression  which  its  elaborate  machinery 
of  government  and  mature  civilization  made  upon  the 
minds  of  the  Northern  invaders.  With  arms  whose  fabri- 
cation they  had  learned  from  their  foes,  these  children  of 
the  forest  conquered  well-tilled  fields,  and  entered  towns 
whose  busy  workshops,  marts  stored  with  the  productions 
of  distant  countries,  and  palaces  rich  in  monuments  of 

*  Not  the  consulship  itself,  but  the  ornamenta  consularia.  An  Aquitanian 
chieftain  was  legate  of  Central  Gaul  (Lugdunensis)  under  the  name  of  Julius 
Vindex  in  A.t).  68. 


THE   BARBARIAN   INVASIONS  17 

art,  equally  roused  their  wonder.  To  the  beauty  of  statuary  CHAP.  in. 
or  painting  they  might  often  be  blind,  but  the  rudest  mind 
must  have  been  awed  by  the  massive  piles  with  which 
vanity  or  devotion,  or  the  passion  for  amusement,  had 
adorned  Milan  and  Verona,  Aries,  Treves,  and  Bordeaux. 
A  deeper  awe  would  strike  them  as  they  gazed  on  the 
crowding  worshippers  and  stately  ceremonial  of  Christian- 
ity, most  unlike  their  own  rude  sacrifices.  The  exclama- 
tion of  the  Goth  Athanarich,  when  led  into  the  market-place 
of  Constantinople,  may  stand  for  the  feelings  of  his  nation  : 
'  Without  doubt  the  Emperor  is  a  God  upon  earth,  and  he 
who  attacks  him  is  guilty  of  his  own  blood.'  e 

The  social  and  political  system,  with  its  cultivated  lan- 
guage and  literature,  into  which  they  came,  would  impress 
fewer  of  the  conquerors,  but  by  those  few  would  be  ad- 
mired beyond  all  else.  Its  regular  organization  supplied 
what  they  most  needed  and  could  least  construct  for  them- 
selves, and  hence  it  was  that  the  greatest  among  them 
were  the  most  desirous  to  preserve  it.  Except  Attila  the 
Hun,  there  is  among  these  terrible  hosts  no  destroyer; 
the  wish  of  each  leader  is  to  maintain  the  existing  order, 
to  spare  life,  to  respect  every  work  of  skill  and  labour, 
above  all  to  perpetuate  the  methods  of  Roman  administra-  Their  desire 
tion,  and  rule  the  people  as  the  deputy  or  successor  of  *°Preserve 

its  institu- 

their  Emperor.  Titles  conferred  by  him  were  the  highest  tions. 
honours  they  knew :  they  were  also  the  only  means  of  ac- 
quiring something  like  a  legal  grant  of  authority,  a  claim 
to  the  obedience  of  the  provincial  subject,  and  of  turning 
a  patriarchal  or  military  chieftainship  into  the  regular 
sway  of  an  hereditary  monarch.  Civilis  had  long  since 
endeavoured  to  govern  his  Batavians  as  a  Roman  general.' 
Alarich  became  master-general  of  the  armies  of  Illyricum. 
Clovis  exulted  in  the  bestowal  of  an  honorary  consulship ; 

e  Jordanes,  De  Rebus  Geiicis,  cap.  28.  f  Tac.  Hist,  i  and  iv. 


18  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  in.  his  grandson  Theodebert  addresses  the  Emperor  Justinian 
as  '  Father.' g  Sigismund  the  Burgundian  king,  created 
count  and  patrician  by  the  Emperor  Anastasius,  professed 
the  deepest  gratitude  and  the  firmest  faith  to  that  Eastern 
court,  which  was  powerless  to  help  or  to  hurt  him.  '  My 
people  is  yours,'  he  writes,  'and  to  rule  them  delights  me 
less  than  to  serve  you  ;  the  hereditary  devotion  of  my  race 
to  Rome  has  made  us  account  those  the  highest  honours 
which  your  military  titles  convey ;  we  have  always  pre- 
ferred what  an  Emperor  gave  to  all  that  our  ancestors  could 
bequeath.  In  ruling  our  nation  we  hold  ourselves  but  your 
lieutenants  :  you,  whose  divinely-appointed  sway  no  barrier 
bounds,  whose  beams  shine  from  the  Bosphorus  into  distant 
Gaul,  employ  us  to  administer  the  remoter  regions  of  your 
Empire  :  your  world  is  our  fatherland.' h 

A  contemporary  historian  has  recorded  the  remarkable 
disclosure  of  his  own  thoughts  and  purposes,  made  by  one 
of  the  ablest  of  the  barbarian  chieftains,  Athaulf  the  West 
Goth,  the  brother-in-law  and  successor  of  Alarich.  '  It 
was  at  first  my  wish  to  destroy  the  Roman  name,  and  erect 
in  its  place  a  Gothic  empire,  taking  to  myself  the  place  and 
the  powers  of  Caesar  Augustus.  But  when  experience 
taught  me  that  the  untameable  barbarism  of  the  Goths  would 
not  suffer  them  to  live  beneath  the  sway  of  law,  and  that 
to  abolish  the  laws  on  which  the  state  rests  would  destroy 
the  state  itself,  I  chose  the  glory  of  renewing  and  main- 
taining by  Gothic  strength  the  fame  of  Rome,  desiring  to 
go  down  to  posterity  as  the  restorer  of  that  Roman  power 

«  '  Praecellentissimo  Domino  et  Patri.'  —  Letters  printed  in  Dom  Bouquet, 
iv,  Epp.  15  and  16. 

h  Letter  printed  among  the  works  of  Avitus,  Bishop  of  Vienne  (Migne's 
Patrologia,  vol.  lix.  p.  285). 

This  letter  is  obviously  the  composition  not  of  Sigismund  himself,  but  of 
Avitus,  writing  on  Sigismund's  behalf.  But  this  makes  it  scarcely  less  valu- 
able evidence  of  the  feelings  of  the  time. 


THE   BARBARIAN   INVASIONS  19 

which   I  could  not  replace.     Wherefore  I  avoid  war  and  CHAP.  in. 
strive  for  peace.'  * 

The  records  of  the  time,  scanty  as  they  are,  shew  us 
how  valuable  was  the  experience  of  Roman  officials  to 
princes  who  from  leaders  of  tribes  had  become  rulers  of 
wide  lands ;  and  in  particular  how  indispensable  the  aid  of 
the  Christian  bishops,  the  intellectual  aristocracy  of  their 
new  subjects,  whose  advice  could  alone  guide  the  policy  of 
the  conqueror  and  secure  the  good-will  of  the  vanquished. 
Not  only  is  this  true  ;  it  is  but  a  small  part  of  the  truth, 
one  form  of  that  manifold  and  overpowering  influence 
which  the  old  system  exercised  over  the  intruding  stran- 
gers not  less  than  over  its  own  children.  For  it  is  hardly 
too  much  to  say  that  the  thought  of  antagonism  to  the 
Empire  and  the  wish  to  extinguish  it  never  crossed  the 
mind  of  the  barbarians.j  The  conception  of  that  Empire 
was  too  universal,  too  august,  too  enduring.  It  was  every- 
where around  them,  and  they  could  remember  no  time 
when  it  had  not  been  so.  It  had  no  association  of  people 
or  place  whose  fall  could  seem  to  involve  that  of  the  whole 
fabric ;  it  had  that  connection  with  the  Christian  Church 
which  made  it  all-embracing  and  venerable. 

1 '  Referre  solitus  est  (sc.  Ataulphus)  se  in  primis  ardenter  inhiasse :  ut 
obliterate  Romanorum  nomine  Romanum  omne  solum  Gothorum  imperium 
et  faceret  et  vocaret :  essetque,  ut  vulgariter  loquar,  Gothia  quod  Romania 
fuisset;  fieretque  nunc  Ataulphus  quod  quondam  Caesar  Augustus.  At  ubi 
multa  experientia  probavisset,  neque  Gothos  vrllo  modo  parere  legibus  posse 
propter  effrenatam  barbariem,  neque  reipublicae  interdici  leges  oportere  sine 
quibus  respublica  non  est  respublica,  elegisse  se  saltern,  ut  gloriam  sibi  de 
restituendo  in  integrum  augendoque  Romano  nomine  Gothorum  viribus  quae- 
reret,  habereturque  apud  posteros  Romanae  restitutionis  auctor  postquam 
esse  non  potuerat  immutator.  Ob  hoc  abstinere  a  bello,  ob  hoc  inhiare  paci 
nitebatur.'  —  Orosius,  vii.  43. 

J  Athaulf  formed  only  to  abandon  it. 

When  in  A.D.  587  Reccared,  king  of  the  West  Goths  of  Spain,  renounced 
Arianism  to  adopt  the  orthodoxy  of  the  Empire,  he  called  himself  Flavius. 


20 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  in.         There  were  especially  two  ideas  whereon  it  rested,  and 
The  belief  in    f  rom  which  it  obtained  a  peculiar  strength  and  a  peculiar 

its  eternity.         ,.          .  .  . 

direction.  The  one  was  the  belief  that  as  the  dominion  of 
Rome  was  universal,  so  must  it  be  eternal.  Nothing  like 
it  had  been  seen  before.  The  empire  of  Alexander  had 
lasted  a  short  lifetime ;  and  within  its  wide  compass  were 
included  many  arid  wastes,  and  many  tracts  where  none 
but  the  roving  savage  had  ever  set  foot.  That  of  the 
Italian  city  had  for  fourteen  generations  embraced  all 
the  most  wealthy  and  populous  regions  of  the  civilized 
world,  and  had  laid  the  foundations  of  its  power  so  deep 
that  they  seemed  destined  to  last  for  ever.  If  Rome  moved 
slowly  for  a  time,  her  foot  was  always  planted  firmly  :  the 
ease  and  swiftness  of  her  later  conquests  proved  the 
solidity  of  the  earlier;  and  to  her,  more  justly  than  to  his 
own  city,  might  the  boast  of  the  Athenian  statesman  be 
applied :  that  she  advanced  farthest  in  prosperity,  and  in 
adversity  drew  back  the  least.  From  the  end  of  the 
republican  period  her  poets,  her  orators,  her  jurists,  ceased 
not  to  repeat  the  claim  of  world-dominion,  and  confidently 
predict  its  eternity.k  The  proud  belief  of  his  countrymen 
which  Virgil  had  expressed  — 

'  His  ego  nee  metas  rerum,  nee  tempora  pono  : 
Imperium  sine  fine  dedi'  — 

was  shared  by  the  early  Christians  when  they  prayed  for 
the  persecuting  power  whose  fall  would  bring  Antichrist 
upon  earth.  Lactantius  (a  contemporary  of  Constantine) 
writes :  '  When  Rome  the  head  of  the  world  shall  have 
fallen,  who  can  doubt  that  the  end  is  come  of  human 

k  See,  among  other  passages,  Varro,  De  lingua  Latina,  iv.  34 ;  Cic.  Pro  Domo, 
33;  Virg.  Aen.  ix.  448;  Hor.  Od.  Hi.  30.  8;  Tibull.  ii.  5.  23;  Ovid,  Am.  \.  15.  26; 
Trist.  iii.  7.  51 ;  and  cf.  the  Digest  of  Justinian,  book  xiv.  2. 9 ;  and  i.  I.  33  ('  Roma 
communis  nostra  patria').  The  phrase  '  urbs  aeterna'  appears  in  a  constitution 
issued  by  Valentinian  III  (Nov.  Valent.  17). 

Tertullian  speaks  of  Rome  as  '  civitas  sacrosancta.1 


THE   BARBARIAN    INVASIONS  21 

things,  aye,  of  the  earth  itself.  She,  she  alone  is  the  state  CHAP.  in. 
by  which  all  things  are  upheld  even  until  now;  wherefore 
let  us  make  prayers  and  supplications  to  the  God  of 
heaven,  if  indeed  His  decrees  and  His  purposes  can  be 
delayed,  that  that  hateful  tyrant  come  not  sooner  than  we 
look  for,  he  for  whom  are  reserved  fearful  deeds,  who 
shall  pluck  out  that  eye  in  whose  extinction  the  world  it- 
self shall  perish.' l  With  the  triumph  of  Christianity  this 
belief  had  found  a  new  basis.  For  as  the  Empire  had 
decayed,  the  Church  had  grown  stronger :  and  now  while 
the  one,  trembling  at  the  approach  of  the  destroyer,  saw 
province  after  province  torn  away,  the  other,  rising  in 
stately  youth,  prepared  to  fill  her  place  and  govern  in  her 
name,  and  in  doing  so,  to  adopt  and  sanctify  and  propa- 
gate anew  the  notion  of  a  universal  and  unending  state. 

The  second  chief   element  in  this  conception  was  the   Sanctity  of 
association  of  such  a  state  with  its  absolute  and  irrespon-  the  lT"Perial 

name. 

sible  head,  the  Emperor.  The  hatred  to  the  name  of 
King,  which  their  earliest  political  struggles  had  left  in 
the  Romans,  by  attaching  to  their  ruler  a  new  and  strange 
title,  marked  him  off  from  all  the  other  sovereigns  of  the 
world.  To  the  provincials  especially  he  became  an  awful 
impersonation  of  the  great  machine  of  government  which 
moved  above  and  around  them.  It  was  not  merely  that 
he  was,  like  a  modern  king,  the  centre  of  power  and  the 
dispenser  of  honour :  his  pre-eminence,  broken  by  no 
comparison  with  other  princes,  by  the  ascending  ranks  of 
no  titled  aristocracy,  had  in  it  something  almost  super- 
natural. The  right  of  legislation  had  become  vested  in 
him  alone :  the  decrees  of  the  people,  and  resolutions  of 
the  senate,  and  edicts  of  the  magistrates  were,  during  the 
last  three  centuries,  replaced  by  imperial  '  Constitutions  ' ; 
his  domestic  council,  the  Consistory,  was  the  supreme 

l  See  Note  I  at  the  end. 


22  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  in.  court  of  appeal ;  his  interposition,  like  that  of  some  terres- 
trial Providence,  was  invoked,  and  legally  provided  so  to 
be,  to  reverse  or  overleap  the  ordinary  rules  of  law.m 
From  the  time  of  Julius  Caesar  and  Augustus  his  person 
had  been  hallowed  by  the  office  of  chief  pontiff"  and  the 
tribunician  power;  to  swear  by  his  head  was  considered 
the  most  solemn  of  all  oaths ;  °  his  effigy  was  sacred,p 
even  on  a  coin ;  to  him  or  to  his  Genius  temples  were 
erected  and  divine  honours  paid  while  he  lived ; q  and 
when,  as  it  was  expressed,  he  ceased  to  be  among  men, 
the  title  of  Divus  was  accorded  to  him,  after  a  solemn 
consecration/  In  the  confused  multiplicity  of  mytholo- 
gies, the  worship  of  the  Emperor  was  the  only  worship 
common  to  the  whole  Roman  world,  and  was  therefore 

m  For  example,  by  the  '  restitutio  natalium,'  and  the  '  adrogatio  per  rescrip- 
tum  principis,'  or,  as  it  is  expressed,  '  per  sacrum  oraculum.' 

n  Even  the  Christian  Emperors  took  the  title  of  Pontifex  Maximus,  till 
Gratian  refused  it  as  unlawful :  aff^fjuffrov  elvai  Xpiffridvy  rb  (rxr}fj.a  voplffas. 
—  Zosimus,  lib.  iv.  cap.  36.  Pope  Gelasius  I  {Tractat.  iv.  n),  noting  that 
Melchizedek  had  been  both  king  and  priest,  says  that  the  Devil  imitated  this 
arrangement  when  he  made  the  Roman  Emperors  chief  pontiffs;  but  when 
Christ  the  true  King  and  Priest  came,  He  provided  that  the  two  offices 
should  be  thereafter  distinct. 

0  '  Maiore  formidine  et  callidiore  timiditate  Caesarem  observatis  quam 
ipsum  ex  Olympo  lovem,  et  merito,  si  sciatis.  .  .  .  Citius  denique  apud  vos 
per  omnes  Deos  quam  per  unum  genium  Caesaris  peieratur.' — Tertull. 
Apolog.  c.  xxviii. 

Cf.  Zos.  v.  51 :  el  /j.tv  y&p  ?rp6s  rbv  Oebv  rervx^Kei  8iS6/jievos  fywcos,  Jjv  &v  ws 
e//cds  irapibtiv  tvdLdovras  Ty  rov  Oeov  <pi\av6pwir[q.  rfyv  twl  rrj  dffe^etif.  crvyyvu- 
fj.rjv.  tirel  8t  KO.T£L  TTJS  rov  /ScttrtX^wj  6/j.u/j.6Ke<rav  Ke<pa\TJs,  OVK  flvai  de/j-trbr 
o^ro?s  e/j  rbv  TOGOVTOV  SpKov  f^afj-apretv. 

P  Tac.  Ann.  i.  73;  iii.  38,  etc. 

1 1t  is  curious  that  this  should  have  begun  in  the  first  years  of  the  Empire. 
See,  among  other  passages  that  might  be  cited  from  the  Augustan  poets, 
Virg.  Georg.  i.  24;  iv.  560;  Hor.  Od.  iii.  3.  ii;  Ovid,  Epp.  ex  Ponto,  iv.  9. 

I05- 

r  Hence  Vespasian's  dying  jest,  '  Ut  puto,  deus  fio.'  The  title  was  not 
conferred  upon  Emperors  of  evil  memory. 


THE   BARBARIAN   INVASIONS  23 

that  usually  proposed  as  a  test  to  the  Christians  on  their  CHAP.  in. 
trial.  Under  the  new  religion  the  form  of  adoration  van- 
ished, the  sentiment  of  reverence  remained  :  and  the  right 
to  control  the  Church  as  well  as  the  State,  admitted  by 
the  bishops  assembled  in  the  first  oecumenical  council  at 
Nicaea,  and  frequently  exercised  by  the  sovereigns  of  Con- 
stantinople, made  the  Emperor  hardly  less  essential  to  the 
new  conception  of  a  world-wide  Christian  monarchy  than 
he  had  been  to  the  military  despotism  of  old. 

These  considerations  explain  why  the  men  of  the  fifth 
century,  clinging  to  preconceived  ideas,  and  filled  with  the 
belief,  drawn  from  Jewish  prophecy,  that  the  great  Fourth 
Kingdom  was  to  last  till  the  end  of  the  world,  refused  to 
believe  in  that  dissolution  of  the  Empire  which  they  saw 
with  their  own  eyes.  Because  it  could  not  die,  it  lived. 
And  there  was  in  the  slowness  of  the  change  and  its 
external  aspect,  as  well  as  in  the  fortunes  of  the  capital, 
something  to  favour  the  illusion.  The  Roman  name  was 
shared  by  every  subject ;  the  Roman  city  was  no  longer 
the  seat  of  government,  nor  did  her  capture  extinguish 
the  imperial  power,  for  the  maxim  was  now  accepted, 
Where  the  Emperor  is,  there  is  Rome.8  But  her  con- 
tinued existence,  not  permanently  occupied  by  any  con- 
queror, striking  the  nations  with  an  awe  which  the  history 
or  the  external  splendours  of  Constantinople,  Milan,  or 
Ravenna  could  nowise  inspire,  was  an  ever  new  assertion 
of  the  endurance  of  the  Roman  race  and  dominion.  Dis- 
honoured and  defenceless,  the  spell  of  her  name  was  still 
strong  enough  to  arrest  the  conqueror  in  the  moment  of 
triumph.  The  irresistible  impulse  that  drew  Alarich  was 
one  of  glory  or  revenge,  not  of  destruction :  the  Hun 
turned  back  from  Aquileia  with  a  vague  fear  upon  him  : 
the  Ostrogoth  adorned  and  protected  his  splendid  prize. 

•  STTOV  &v  6  /3cwtXei>s  y,  tuft  ij  'P6/J.1J  —  says  Herodian. 


24  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  in.  In  the  history  of  the  last  days  of  the  Western  Empire, 
Last  days  of  two  points  deserve  special  remark :  its  continued  union 
the  estem  ^^  ^Q  Eastern  branch,  and  the  way  in  which  its  ideal 

Empire.  J 

A.D.  408.  dignity  was  respected  while  its  representatives  were  de- 
spised. Stilicho  was  the  last  statesman  who  could  have 
saved  it.  After  his  death,  and  after  the  City  had  been 
captured  by  Alarich  in  A.D.  410,  the  fall  of  the  Western 
throne,  though  delayed  for  two  generations  by  traditional 
reverence,  became  practically  certain.  While  one  by  one 
the  provinces  were  abandoned  by  the  central  government, 
left  either  to  be  occupied  by  invading  tribes  or  to  main- 
tain a  precarious  independence,  like  Britain  and  the  Armo- 
rican  cities,  by  means  of  municipal  unions,  Italy  lay  at  the 
mercy  of  the  barbarian  auxiliaries  and  was  governed  by 
their  leaders.  The  degenerate  line  of  Theodosius  might 
have  seemed  to  reign  by  hereditary  right,  but  after  their 
extinction  in  Valentinian  III  it  was  from  the  haughty 
Ricimer,  general  of  the  barbarian  troops,  that  each  phan- 
tom Emperor —  Maximus,  Avitus,  Majorian,  Anthemius, 
Olybrius  —  received  the  purple  only  to  be  stripped  of  it 

A.D.  395.  when  he  presumed  to  forget  his  dependence.  Though  the 
division  between  Arcadius  and  Honorius  had  definitely 
severed  the  two  realms  for  administrative  purposes,  they 
were  still  deemed  to  constitute  a  single  Empire,  and  the 
rulers  of  the  East  interfered  more  than  once  to  raise  to  the 
Western  throne  princes  they  could  not  protect  upon  it. 
Ricimer's  insolence  quailed  before  the  shadowy  grandeur  of 
the  imperial  title :  his  ambition,  and  that  of  Gundobald  his 
successor,  were  bounded  by  the  name  of  Patrician.  The 
bolder  genius  of  Odoacer/  commander  of  the  barbarian 

*  Odoacer  or  Odovacar,  as  it  seems  his  name  ought  to  be  written,  is  usu- 
ally, but  incorrectly,  described  as  a  King  of  the  Heruli,  who  led  his  people 
into  Italy  and  overthrew  the  Empire  of  the  West;  others  call  him  King  of 
the  Rugii,  or  Skyrri,  or  Turcilingi,  or  even  of  the  Goths,  for  .the  name  '  Goth ' 
was  sometimes  used  to  denote  the  Teutonic  invaders  generally.  The  truth 


THE   BARBARIAN   INVASIONS  25 

auxiliaries,  resolved  to  abolish  an  empty  pageant,  and  ex-  CHAP.  in. 
tinguish  the  title  and  office  of  Emperor  in  the  West.  Yet 
over  him  too  the  spell  had  power ;  and  as  the  Gaulish 
warrior  had  gazed  on  the  silent  majesty  of  the  senate  in  a 
deserted  city,  so  the  Herulian  revered  the  power  before 
which  the  world  had  bowed,  and  though  there  was  no  force 
to  check  or  to  affright  him,  shrank  from  grasping  in  his 
own  barbarian  hand  the  sceptre  of  the  Caesars.  When,  at  its  extinction 
Odoacer's  bidding,  Romulus,  nicknamed  Augustulus,  the  *?  Odoacer> 
boy  whom  a  whim  of  fate  had  chosen  to  be  the  last 
native  Caesar  of  Rome,  had  formally  announced  his  resig- 
nation to  the  senate,  a  deputation  from  that  body  pro- 
ceeded to  the  Eastern  court  to  lay  the  insignia  of  royalty 
at  the  feet  of  the  reigning  Emperor  Zeno.  The  West, 
they  declared,  no  longer  required  an  Emperor  of  its  own  : 
one  monarch  sufficed  for  the  world  ;  Odoacer  was  qualified 
by  his  wisdom  and  courage  to  be  the  protector  of  their 
state,  and  upon  him  Zeno  was  entreated  to  confer  the  title 
of  Patrician  and  the  administration  of  the  Italian  pro- 
vinces.11 The  Emperor,  though  he  reminded  the  Senate 
that  their  request  ought  rather  to  have  been  made  to  the 
lately  dispossessed  Western  Emperor  Julius  Nepos,  granted 
what  he  could  not  refuse,  and  wrote  to  Odoacer,  address- 
seems  to  be  that  he  was  not  a  king  at  all,  but  the  son  of  a  Skyrrian  chieftain 
(Edecon,  possibly  the  same  Edecon  as  the  one  whom  Attila  sent  as  an  envoy 
to  Constantinople),  whose  personal  merits  made  him  chosen  by  the  barbarian 
auxiliaries  to  be  their  leader.  The  Skyrri  were  a  small  tribe,  apparently  akin 
to  the  more  powerful  Heruli,  whose  name  is  often  extended  to  them. 

u  A&yovffros  6  'OptffTov  vi6s  dKotfcras   Zrfvwva  Trd\iv  TT\V  {$a.(ri\ela.v 
KTijerdai  TTJJ   ?w.   .   .   .      -^vdyKaffe   TTJV    /SovX???   dTro<rrei\ai  irpe<rj3eiav 
ffTjfjLalvovffav  is  Idlas  fj.tv  atfrois  j3o<ri\e£os  ov  Stoi,  KOIV&S  52  dwoxprfo'ei- 
wv  avTOKpdrwp   iir     d/jLtportpois  rots  Trtpaffi.     rbv  (itvrot.  '086a.-x.ov  vir'  airrwv 
irpopffiXTjffffai  lKa.vbv  6vra  (rufeiv  TO.  Trap'  aurols  irpdy/j-dra  iro\triK'rjv  t-£&v  vovv 
Kal  fftivetriv  6/ioO  Ka.1  /id^t/xov,  /cai  SftcrOai  TOV   Zrivojvos  irarpiKlov  re  avrip  diro- 
ffrei\ai  d£tav  Kal  rrjv  r(av  'iTaXwc  TOUT<£  tyfivai  Siolicriffiv. —  Corp.  Scr.  Hist, 
Byzant.,  vol.  xix.  p.  235  (Excerpta  e  Malchi  Hist.}, 


26  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

ing  him  as  Patrician.  Assuming  the  title  of  King,* 
Odoacer  continued  the  consular  office,  respected  the  civil 
and  ecclesiastical  institutions  of  his  subjects,  and  ruled 
for  fourteen  years  under  the  nominal  suzerainty  of  the 
Eastern  Emperor/  There  was  thus  legally  no  extinction 
of  the  Western  Empire  at  all,  but  only  a  reunion  of  East 
and  West.  In  form,  and  to  some  extent  also  in  the  belief 
of  men,  things  now  reverted  to  their  state  during  the  first 
two  centuries  of  the  Empire,  save  that  New  Rome  on  the 
Bosphorus  instead  of  Old  Rome  on  the  Tiber  was  the 
centre  of  the  civil  government.  The  joint  tenancy  which 
had  been  conceived  by  Diocletian,  carried  further  by  Con- 
stantine,  renewed  under  Valentinian  I  and  again  at  the 
death  of  Theodosius,  had  come  to  an  end ;  once  more  did 
a  single  Emperor  sway  the  sceptre  of  the  world,  and  head 
an  undivided  Catholic  Church.  To  those  who  lived  at  the 
time,  this  year  (A.D.  476)  was  no  such  epoch  as  it  has  since 
become,  nor  was  any  impression  made  on  men's  minds 
commensurate  with  the  real  significance  of  the  event.  It 
is,  indeed,  one  of  the  most  striking  instances  in  history  of 
a  change  whose  magnitude  was  not  perceived  until  long 
after  it  occurred.  For  though  the  cessation  of  an  Em- 
peror reigning  in  the  West  did  not  destroy  the  Empire  in 
idea,  nor  wholly  even  in  fact,  its  consequences  were  from 
the  first  immense.  It  hastened  the  developement  of  a 
Latin  as  opposed  to  Greek  and  Oriental  forms  of  Christi- 
anity :  it  emancipated  the  Popes  :  it  gave  a  new  character 

*  Not  king  of  Italy,  as  is  often  said.     The  barbarian  kings  did  not  for 
several   centuries    employ   territorial    titles;    Rex  Angliae   is   not   seen   till 
Henry  I:  Rex  Franciae  not  till  Henry  IV  (of  France),  and  Jordanes  and 
Cassiodorus  tell  us  that  Odoacer  never  so  much  as  assumed  the  insignia  of 
royalty;  but  there  is  a  coin  on  which  he  appears  as  'rex.' 

y  As  to  Odoacer  and  the  occurrences  of  A.D.  476,  cf.  Hodgkin,  Italy  and 
her  Invaders,  vol.  ii.  p.  $i&  sqq. 

*  Statues  of  Zeno  as  reigning  Emperor  were  set  up  in  Rome. 


THE   BARBARIAN   INVASIONS  2? 

to  the  projects  and  government  of  the  Teutonic  rulers  of  CHAP.  in. 
the  Western  countries.     But  the  importance  of  remember- 
ing its  formal  aspect  to  those  who  witnessed  it  will  be  felt 
as  we  approach  the  era  when  the  Empire  was  revived  by 
Charles  the  Frank. 

Odoacer's  monarchy  was  not  more  oppressive  than  were  Odoacer. 
those  of  the  barbarian  kings  who  were  reigning  in  Gaul, 
Spain,  and  Africa.  But  the  confederated  mercenary  troops 
who  supported  it  were  a  loose  swarm  of  predatory  tribes : 
themselves  without  cohesion,  they  could  take  no  firm 
root  in  Italy.  Under  his  rule  no  progress  seems  to  have 
been  made  towards  the  reorganization  of  society ;  and 
the  first  real  attempt  to  blend  the  peoples  and  maintain 
the  traditions  of  Roman  wisdom  in  the  hands  of  a  new 
and  vigorous  race  was  reserved  for  a  more  famous  chief- 
tain, the  greatest  of  all  the  barbarian  conquerors,  the  fore- 
runner of  the  first  barbarian  Emperor,  Theodorich  the 
Ostrogoth.  The  aim  of  his  reign,  though  he  professed  Theodorich. 

deference  to  the  Eastern  court  which  had  favoured  the  A-^-493- 

526. 
invasion  in  which  he  overthrew  Odoacer,  and  whose  titular 

supremacy  he  did  not  reject,*  was  the  establishment  of 
what  would  have  become  a  national  monarchy  in  Italy. 
Brought  up  as  a  hostage  in  the  court  of  Constantinople, 
he  learned  to  know  the  advantages  of  an  orderly  and  cul- 
tivated society  and  the  principles  by  which  it  must  be 
maintained ;  called  in  early  manhood  to  roam  as  a  warrior- 
chief  over  the  plains  of  the  Danube,  he  acquired  along 
with  the  arts  of  command  a  sense  of  the  superiority  of 

• '  Nil  deest  nobis  imperio  vestro  famulantibus,'  writes  Theodorich  to 
Zeno :  So  to  Anastasius  I,  '  Pati  vos  non  credimus  inter  utrasque  respublicas 
quarum  semper  unum  corpus  sub  antiquis  principiis  fuisse  declaratur  aliquid 
discordiae  permanere.  .  .  .  Romani  regni  unum  velle,  una  semper  opinio  sit' 
(Cassiod.  Variar.  i.  i).  Cf.  Jordanes,  De  Rebus  Geticis,  cap.  57.  So  in  a 
letter  to  the  Emperor  Anastasius  '  Regnum  nostrum  imitatio  vestri '  (Cassiod. 
Variar.  i.  i). 


28  THE    HOLY    ROMAN    EMPIRE 

CHAP.  in.  his  own  people  in  valour  and  energy  and  truth.  When 
the  defeat  and  death  of  Odoacer  had  left  both  Italy  and 
Sicily  at  his  mercy,  he  sought  no  further  conquest,  easy 
as  it  would  have  been  to  tear  away  new  provinces  from 
the  Eastern  realm,  but  strove  only  to  preserve  and 
strengthen  the  ancient  polity  of  Rome,  to  breathe  into 
her  decaying  institutions  the  spirit  of  a  fresh  life,  and 
without  endangering  the  military  supremacy  of  his  own 
Goths,  to  conciliate  by  indulgence  and  gradually  raise  to 
the  level  of  their  masters  the  degenerate  population  of 
Italy.  The  Gothic  nation  appears  from  the  first  less  cruel 
in  war  and  more  sage  in  council  than  any  of  their  Ger- 
manic brethren:1*  all  that  was  noble  among  them  shone 
forth  now  in  the  rule  of  the  greatest  of  the  Amals.  From 
his  palace  at  Verona,0  commemorated  in  the  song  of  the 
Nibelungs,  he  issued  equal  laws  for  Roman  and  Goth,  and 
bade  the  intruder,  if  he  must  occupy  part  of  the  lands,  at 
least  respect  the  goods  and  the  person  of  his  fellow  sub- 
ject. Jurisprudence  and  administration  remained  in  native 
hands  :  two  annual  consuls,  one  named  by  Theodorich,  the 
other  by  the  Eastern  monarch,  presented  an  image  of  the 
ancient  state ;  and  while  agriculture  and  the  arts  revived 
in  the  provinces,  Rome  herself  celebrated  the  visits  of  a 
master  who  provided  for  the  wants  of  her  people  and  pre- 
served with  care  the  monuments  of  her  former  splendour.*1 
With  peace  and  plenty  men's  minds  took  hope,  and  the 
study  of  letters  revived.  The  last  gleam  of  classical  litera- 
ture gilds  the  reign  of  the  barbarian. 

By  the  consolidation  of  the  two  races  under  one  wise 

b  '  Unde  et  paene  omnibus  barbaris  Gothi  sapientiores  exstiterunt  Graecis- 
que  paene  consimiles.'  —  Jord.  cap.  5. 

c  See  Note  II  at  the  end. 

d  He  restored  some  of  the  buildings  which  were  already  falling  to  ruin  in 
the  Roman  Forum.  Bricks  stamped  with  his  name  were  found  in  1902  near 
the  south-west  end  of  the  recently  uncovered  floor  of  the  Basilica  Aemilia. 


THE   BARBARIAN   INVASIONS  29 

government,  Italy  might  have  been  spared  six  hundred  CHAP.  in. 
years  of  gloom  and  degradation.  It  was  not  so  to  be. 
Theodorich  was  tolerant,  but  toleration  was  itself  an 
offence  in  the  eyes  of  his  orthodox  subjects  :  the  Arian 
Goths  were  and  remained  strangers  and  enemies  among 
the  Catholic  Italians.  Scarcely  had  the  sceptre  passed 
from  the  hands  of  Theodorich  to  his  weaker  offspring, 
when  Justinian,  who  had  viewed  with  jealousy  the  great- 
ness of  his  nominal  lieutenant,  determined  to  assert  his 
dormant  rights  over  Italy  and  Sicily  ;  its  people  welcomed  itafy  and 
Belisarius  as  a  deliverer,  and  in  the  long  struggle  that  Stclly  con~ 

guered  by 

followed  the  race  and  name  of  the  Ostrogoths  perished  justiman, 
for  ever.     Thus  again  reunited  in  fact,  as  it  had  been  all  A.D.  535- 
the  while  united  in   theory,  to  the  Roman  Empire,  Italy  SS3' 
was  divided  into  counties  and  dukedoms,  and  obeyed  the 
exarch  of  Ravenna,  viceroy  of  the  East  Roman  court,  till 
the  arrival  of  the  Lombards  in  A.D.  568  drove  him  from 
some  districts,  and  left  him  only  a  feeble  authority  over 
the  Eastern  and  Southern  parts  of  the  peninsula. 

Beyond  the  Alps,  though   the   Roman  population  had    Thetrans- 
by  this  time  ceased  to  seek  help  from   the   Eastern   sov-  alPinePr°- 

J  _  _          vmces. 

ereigns,  the  Empire's  rights  were  still  deemed  to  subsist, 
though  as  respects  Gaul  they  were  deemed  to  have  been 
yielded  by  Justinian  to  the  Franks.6  As  has  been  said, 

e  Procopius  tells  us  that  when  the  Ostrogoths  found  themselves  unable  to 
defend  their  territories  in  South-eastern  Gaul,  they  yielded  these  to  Theode- 
bert,  king  of  the  Franks,  who  thereupon  obtained  a  confirmation  of  his 
possession  from  Justinian.  Thus  the  barbarians  obtained  Marseilles,  and 
celebrated  at  Aries  the  equestrian  contest,  probably  the  ludus  Troianus, 
which  had  been  instituted  by  Augustus,  /cal  vvv  Kdidyvrai  fj.tv  tv  TVJ  'ApeXdry 
ritv  iTfiriKbv  ayuva  0eufj.evot  {Bell.  Goth.  iii.  33).  He  adds  that  the  Franks 
did  not  think  their  acquisition  of  Gaul  secure  until  it  had  been  formally  rati- 
fied by  the  Emperor. 

The  (almost  contemporary)  Life  of  St.  Trevirius  says  that  the  saint  lived  '  eo 
tempore  quo  Gallia  sub  imperii  iure  lustini  consulis  (the  Emperor  Justin  I) 
exstitit,'  and  refers  to  the  reign  of  Theodebert  as  the  time  when  '  reges  Gallia- 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  in.  those  rights  had  been  admitted  by  the  conquerors  them- 
selves :  by  Athaulf,  when  he  reigned  in  Aquitaine  as  the 
vicar  of  Honorius,  and  recovered  Spain  from  the  Suevi  to 
restore  it  to  its  ancient  masters ;  by  the  West  Gothic 
kings  of  Spain,  when  they  permitted  the  Mediterranean 
cities  to  send  tribute  to  Constantinople ;  by  Clovis,  when, 
after  the  representatives  of  the  old  government,  Syagrius 
and  the  Armorican  cities,  had  been  conquered  or  absorbed, 
and  the  West  Gothic  kingdom  in  Aquitaine  had  been  over- 
thrown, he  received  with  delight  from  the  Eastern  emperor 
Anastasius  the  grant  of  a  Roman  dignity  to  confirm  his 
possession.  Arrayed  like  a  Fabius  or  Valerius  in  the 
consul's  purple  robe  and  senatorial  chlamys,  the  Sicambrian 
chieftain  rode  through  the  streets  of  Tours,  while  the  shout 
of  the  provincials  hailed  him  Augustus/  They  already 
obeyed  him,  but  his  power  was  now  legalized  in  their  eyes, 
and  it  was  not  without  a  melancholy  pride  that  they  saw 
the  terrible  conqueror  himself  yield  to  the  spell  of  the 
Roman  name,  and  do  homage  to  the  enduring  majesty  of 
their  legitimate  sovereign. 

Lingering  Yet  the  severed  limbs  of  the  Empire  forgot  by  degrees 
influences  their  original  unity.  As  in  the  breaking  up  of  the  old 
society,  which  we  trace  from  the  sixth  to  the  eighth  cen- 
tury, rudeness  and  ignorance  grew  apace,  as  language  and 
manners  were  changed  by  the  infiltration  of  Teutonic 
settlers,  as  men's  thoughts  and  hopes  and  interests  were 

rum  Francorumque  suae  ditioni,  sublato  imperii  iure,  gubernacula  ponerent, 
et  sublata  Reipublicae  dominatione,  propria  fruerentur  potestate.'  —  Extrac: 
from  Vita  S.  Trevir.  in  Dom  Bouquet,  iii.  441. 

f '  Igitur  Chlodovechus  ab  imperatore  Anastasio  codicillos  de  consulatu 
accepit,  et  in  basilica  beati  Martini  tunica  blattea  indutus  est  et  chlamyde, 
imponens  vertici  diadema  .  .  .  et  ab  ea  die  tanquam  consul  aut  ( =  et) 
Augustus  est  vocitatus.'  —  Gregory  of  Tours,  ii.  38.  He  may  probably  have 
also  received  the  title  of  Patrician :  a  poem  in  Dom  Bouquet,  ii.  538,  says  of 
him,  '  Patricius  magno  sublimis  fulsit  honore.' 


THE   BARBARIAN   INVASIONS  31- 

narrowed  by  isolation  from  their  fellows,  as  the  organiza-  CHAP.  in. 
tion  of  the  Roman  province  and  the  Germanic  tribe  alike 
dissolved  into  a  chaos  whence  the  new  order  began  to 
shape  itself,  dimly  and  doubtfully  as  yet,  the  memory  of 
the  old  Empire,  its  symmetry,  its  sway,  its  civilization, 
must  needs  wane  and  fade.  It  might  have  perished  alto- 
gether but  for  the  two  enduring  witnesses  Rome  had  left 
—  her  Church  and  her  Law.  The  barbarians  had  at  first  Religion. 
associated  Christianity  with  the  Romans  from  whom  they 
learned  it :  the  Romans  had  used  it  as  their  only  bulwark 
against  oppression.  The  hierarchy  were  the  natural  leaders 
of  the  people,  and  the  necessary  councillors  of  the  king. 
Their  power  grew  with  the  decay  of  civil  government  and 
the  spread  of  superstition  ;  and  when  the  Frank  found  it 
too  valuable  to  be  abandoned  to  the  vanquished  people, 
he  insensibly  acquired  the  feelings  and  policy  of  the  order 
which  he  entered. 

As  the  Empire  fell  to  pieces,  and  the  new  kingdoms 
which  the  conquerors  had  founded  began  in  their  turn  to 
dissolve,  the  Church  clung  more  closely  to  her  unity  of 
faith  and  discipline,  the  common  bond  of  all  Christian 
men.  That  unity  must  have  a  centre,  that  centre  was 
Rome.  A  succession  of  able  and  zealous  pontiffs  ex- 
tended her  influence  —  the  sanctity  and  the  writings  of 
Gregory  the  Great  were  famous  through  all  the  West. 
Never  permanently  occupied  by  barbarians,  she  retained 
her  peculiar  character  and  customs,  and  laid  the  founda- 
tions of  a  power  over  men's  souls  more  durable  than  that  c 

Junspru- 

which  she  had  lost  over  their  bodies.8     Only  second  in  dence. 

8  Even  so  early  as  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century,  St.  Leo  the  Great  could 
say  to  the  Roman  people,  '  Isti  (sc.  Petrus  et  Paulus)  sunt  qui  te  ad  hanc 
gloriam  provexerunt  ut  gens  sancta,  populus  electus,  civitas  sacerdotalis  et 
regia,  per  sacram  B.  Petri  sedem  caput  orbis  effecta  latius  praesideres  reli- 
gione  divina  quam  dominatione  terrena.'  —  Sermon  on  the  Feast  of  SS.  Peter 
and  Paul.  (Opp.  ap.  Migne,  torn.  i.  p.  336.) 


32  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  in.  importance  to  this  influence  was  that  which  was  exercised 
by  the  permanence  of  the  old  law,  and  of  its  creature  the 
municipal  organization  of  the  cities.  The  barbarian  inva- 
ders retained  the  customs  of  their  ancestors,  characteristic 
memorials  of  a  rude  people,  as  we  see  them  in  the  Salic 
law  or  in  the  ordinances  of  Ini  and  Alfred.  But  the  sub- 
ject population  and  the  clergy  continued  to  be  governed  by 
that  elaborate  system  which  the  genius  and  labour  of  many 
generations  had  raised  to  be  the  most  lasting  monument 
of  Roman  greatness. 

The  civil  law  had  maintained  itself  in  Spain  and  Southern 
Gaul,  nor  was  it  utterly  forgotten  even  in  the  North,  in 
Britain,  on  the  borders  of  Germany.  Revised  collections 
of  extracts  from  the  Theodosian  Code  and  other  Roman 
law  books  were  issued  by  the  West  Gothic  and  Burgundian 
princes.11  For  some  centuries  it  was  the  patrimony  of  the 
subject  population  everywhere,  and  in  Aquitaine  and  Italy 
has  outlived  feudalism.  The  presumption  that  all  men 
were  to  be  judged  by  it  who  could  not  be  proved  to  be 
subject  to  some  other  law  continued  to  be  accepted  down 
to  the  end  of  the  Middle  Ages.1  Its  phrases,  its  forms, 
its  courts,  its  subtlety  and  precision,  all  recalled  the  strong 
and  cultivated  society  which  had  produced  it.  Other 

h  The  Lex  Romana  Burgundionum,  published  by  the  Burgundian  kings  at 
the  beginning  of  the  sixth  century,  and  the  Lex  Romana  Visigothorum  (£re- 
viarium  Alaricianuni),  published  in  or  about  A.D.  506,  continued  to  form 
bodies  of  written  law  which  were  in  use  for  a  long  time,  and  became  the 
kernel  of  the  customary  law  which  grew  up  in  South-eastern  and  Southern 
Gaul. 

Agathias,  writing  at  Constantinople  in  the  middle  of  the  sixth  century,  says 
the  Franks  had  adopted  much  of  the  Roman  administration  and  law,  oi  $pdy- 
yoi  Tro\iTetq.  w$  ra  TroXAd  xP^vrai  'fufUUKji  Kal  v6/Mis  rots  ai)rots  Kal  rd  #XXa 
6/tot'ws  afjuj>l  re  rd  <ru/uj36Xaia,  Kal  ydpovs  Kal  rr)t>  rov  delov  Oepmrelav  i>o/j.l£'ovffiv 
{Hist.  5.  2). 

1 '  lus  Romanum  est  adhuc  in  viridi  observantia  et  eo  iure  praesumitur 
quilibet  vivere  nisi  adversum  probetur,'  says  Maranta  in  the  sixteenth  century^ 


THE   BARBARIAN   INVASIONS  33 

motives,  as  well  as  those  of  kindness  to  their  subjects,  CHAP.  IIL 
made  the  new  kings  favour  it ;  for  it  exalted  their  preroga- 
tive, and  the  submission  enjoined  by  it  on  one  class  of 
their  subjects  soon  came  to  be  demanded  from  the  other, 
by  their  own  Teutonic  customs  almost  the  equals  of  the 
prince.  Considering  attentively  how  many  of  the  old  in- 
stitutions continued  to  subsist,  and  studying  the  ideas  of 
that  time,  as  they  are  faintly  preserved  in  its  scanty 
records,  it  seems  hardly  too  much  to  say  that  in  the 
eighth  century  the  Roman  Empire  still  existed  in  the 
West :  existed  in  men's  minds  as  a  power  weakened, 
delegated,  suspended,  but  not  destroyed. 

It  is  easy  for  those  who  read  the  history  of  an  age  in 
the  light  of  those  that  followed  it,  to  perceive  that  in  this 
men  erred ;  that  the  tendency  of  events  was  wholly  dif- 
ferent ;  that  society  had  entered  on  a  new  phase,  wherein 
every  change  did  more  to  localize  authority  and  strengthen 
the  aristocratic  principle  at  the  expense  of  the  despotic. 
We  can  see  that  other  forms  of  life,  more  full  of  promise 
for  the  distant  future,  had  already  begun  to  shew  them- 
selves. They,  with  no  type  of  power  or  beauty  but  that 
which  had  filled  the  imagination  of  their  forefathers,  and 
now  loomed  on  them  grander  than  ever  through  the  mist 
of  centuries,  mistook  (as  did  many  of  the  great  spirits  of 
Italy  down  to  the  days  of  Dante  and  Rienzo)  memories 
for  hopes,  and  sighed  only  for  the  renewal  of  its  strength. 
Events  were  at  hand  by  which  these  hopes  seemed 
destined  to  be  gratified. 


CHAP.  IV. 


The 
Franks, 


CHAPTER   IV 

RESTORATION    OF   THE   EMPIRE    IN    THE   WEST 

IT  was  towards  Rome  as  their  ecclesiastical  capital  that 
the  thoughts  and  hopes  of  the  men  of  the  sixth  and 
seventh  centuries  were  constantly  directed.  Yet  not  from 
Rome,  feeble  and  corrupt,  nor  on  the  exhausted  soil  of 
Italy,  was  the  deliverer  to  arise.  Just  when,  as  we  may 
suppose,  the  vision  of  a  renewal  of  imperial  authority  in 
the  Western  provinces  was  beginning  to  vanish  away, 
there  appeared  in  the  furthest  corner  of  Europe,  sprung  of 
a  race  but  lately  brought  within  the  pale  of  civilization,  a 
line  of  chieftains  devoted  to  the  service  of  the  Holy  See, 
and  among  them  one  whose  power,  good  fortune,  and 
heroic  character  pointed  him  out  as  worthy  of  a  dignity 
to  which  doctrine  and  tradition  had  attached  a  sanctity 
almost  divine. 

Of  the  new  monarchies  that  had  risen  on  the  ruins  of 
Rome,  that  of  the  Franks  was  by  far  the  greatest.  In  the 
third  century  they  appear,  with  Saxons,  Alemanni,  and 
Thuringians,  as  one  of  the  greatest  German  tribe  leagues. 
The  Sicambri  (for  it  seems  probable  that  this  famous  race 
was  a  chief  source  of  the  Prankish  nation)  had  now  laid 
aside  their  former  hostility  to  Rome,  and  her  future  repre- 
sentatives were  thenceforth,  with  few  intervals,  her  faithful 
allies.  Many  of  their  chiefs  rose  to  high  places  :  Malarich 
receives  from  Jovian  the  charge  of  the  Western  provinces  ; 
Bauto  and  Mellobaudes  figure  in  the  days  of  Theodosius 

34 


THE   EMPIRE   RESTORED   IN   THE  WEST  35 

and  his  sons ;  the  legendary  Merovech  (grandfather  of  CHAP.  iv. 
Clovis,  and  supposed  to  be  the  son  of  a  water-sprite), 
whose  name  has  given  itself  to  the  Merwing  dynasty,  is 
said  to  have  fought  under  Aetius  against  Attila  in  the 
great  battle  of  Chalons ;  his  countrymen  endeavoured  in 
vain  to  save  Gaul  from  the  Suevi  and  Burgundians.  Not 
till  the  Empire  was  evidently  helpless  did  they  claim  a 
share  of  the  booty ;  then  Clovis,  or  Chlodovech,  chief 
of  the  Salian  tribe,  leaving  his  kindred  the  Ripuarians  in 
their  seats  on  the  lower  Rhine,  advanced  out  of  Flanders 
to  wrest  Gaul  from  the  barbarian  nations  which  had  en-  A.D.  489. 
tered  it  some  sixty  years  before.  Few  conquerors  have 
had  a  career  of  more  unbroken  success.  By  the  defeat  of 
the  Roman  governor  Syagrius  he  was  left  master  of  the 
Northern  provinces  :  the  Burgundian  kingdom  in  the  valley 
of  the  Rhone  was  in  no  long  time  reduced  to  dependence : 
last  of  all,  the  West  Gothic  power  was  overthrown  in  one 
great  battle,  and  Aquitaine  added  to  the  dominions  of 
Clovis.  Nor  were  the  Prankish  arms  less  prosperous 
against  the  Germans  who  dwelt  beyond  the  Rhine.  A 
victory  (supposed  to  have  been  won  at  Tolbiac)  led  to  the 
submission  of  the  Alemanni :  their  allies  the  Bavarians 
followed,  and  when  the  Thuringian  power  had  been  broken 
by  Theodorich  I  (son  of  Clovis),  the  Prankish  league  em- 
braced all  the  tribes  of  Western  and  Southern  Germany. 
The  dominion  thus  formed,  stretching  from  the  Bay  of 
Biscay  to  the  Inn  and  the  Ems,  was  of  course  in  no  sense 
a  Gallic  empire.  Nor,  although  the  widest  and  strongest 
monarchy  that  had  yet  been  founded  by  a  Teutonic  race, 
was  it,  under  the  Merovingian  kings,  a  united  kingdom  at 
all,  but  rather  a  congeries  of  principalities,  held  together 
by  the  predominance  of  a  single  tribe  and  a  single  family, 
who  ruled  in  Gaul  as  masters  over  a  subject  race,  and  in 
Germany  exercised  a  sort  of  hegemony  among  kindred  and 


36  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  iv.  scarcely  inferior  tribes.  But  towards  the  middle  of  the 
eighth  century  a  change  began.  Under  the  rule  of  Pipin 
of  Herstal  and  his  son  Charles  Martel,  mayors  of  the 
palace  to  the  last  feeble  Merovingians,  the  Austrasian 
Franks  in  the  lower  Rhineland  became  acknowledged 
heads  of  the  nation,  and  were  able,  while  establishing  a 
firmer  government  at  home,  to  direct  its  whole  strength 
to  projects  of  foreign  ambition.  The  form  those  projects 
took  arose  from  a  circumstance  which  has  not  yet  been 
mentioned.  It  was  not  solely  or  even  chiefly  to  their  own 
valour  that  the  Franks  owed  their  past  greatness  and  the 
yet  loftier  future  which  awaited  them,  it  was  to  the  friend- 
ship of  the  clergy  and  the  favour  of  the  Apostolic  See. 
The  other  Teutonic  nations,  Goths,  Vandals,  Burgundians, 
Suevians,  Lombards,  had  been  most  of  them  converted  by 
Arian  missionaries  who  proceeded  from  the  Roman  Empire 
during  the  short  period  when  Arian  doctrines  were  in  the 
ascendant.  The  Franks,  who  were  among  the  latest  con- 
verts, were  Catholics  from  the  first,  and  after  the  days  of 
Clovis,  whom  the  clergy  had  welcomed  as  a  sort  of  new 
Constantine,  gladly  accepted  the  clergy  as  their  teachers 
and  allies.  Thus  it  was  that  while  the  hostility  of  their 
orthodox  subjects  had  weakened  the  Vandal  kingdom  in 
Africa  and  the  East  Gothic  kingdom  in  Italy,  the  eager 
sympathy  of  the  priesthood  helped  the  Franks  to  van- 
quish their  Burgundian  and  West  Gothic  enemies,  and 
made  it  comparatively  easy  for  them  to  blend  with  the 
Roman  population  in  the  provinces.  They  had  done  good 
service  against  the  Saracens  of  Spain ;  they  had  aided  the 
English  Winfrith  (St.  Boniface)  in  his  mission  to  the 
heathen  of  Germany ; a  and  at  length,  as  the  most  power- 

* '  Denique  gens  Francorum  multos  et  foecundissimos  fructus  Domino 
attulit,  non  solum  credendo,  sed  et  alios  salutifere  convertendo,'  says  the 
Emperor  Lewis  II  in  A.D.  871. 


THE   EMPIRE   RESTORED   IN   THE   WEST  37 

ful  among  Catholic  nations,  they  attracted  the  eyes  of  the  CHAP.  iv. 
ecclesiastical   head   of   the   West,  now   sorely  bested   by 
domestic  foes. 

Since  the  invasion  of  Alboin,  Italy  had  groaned  under  Italy:  the 
a  complication  of  evils.  The  Lombards  who  had  entered  Lombards- 
along  with  that  chief  in  A.D.  568  had  settled  in  consider- 
able numbers  in  the  valley  of  the  Po,  which  became  the 
seat  of  their  kingdom,  and  had  founded  the  duchies  of 
Spoleto  and  Benevento,  leaving  the  Adriatic  coast  as  well 
as  Rome  and  the  Southern  provinces  to  be  governed  by 
the  exarch  of  Ravenna  as  viceroy  of  the  Eastern  crown. 
This  subjection  was,  however,  little  better  than  nominal. 
Although  too  few  to  occupy  the  whole  peninsula,  the  in- 
vaders were  yet  strong  enough  to  harass  every  part  of  it 
by  inroads  which  met  with  little  resistance  from  a  popula- 
tion unused  to  arms,  and  without  the  spirit  to  use  them  in 
self-defence.  More  cruel  and  repulsive,  if  we  may  believe 
the  evidence  of  their  enemies,  than  any  other  of  the 
Northern  tribes,  the  Lombards  were  certainly  singular  in 
their  aversion  to  the  clergy,  never  admitting  them  to  the 
national  councils.  Tormented  by  their  repeated  attacks, 
Rome  sought  help  in  vain  from  Constantinople,  whose 
forces,  scarce  able  to  repel  from  her  walls  the  Avars  and 
Saracens,  could  give  no  support  to  the  distant  exarch  of 
Ravenna.  The  Popes  were  the  Emperor's  subjects;  they  The  Popes. 
awaited  his  confirmation,  like  other  bishops ;  they  had 
more  than  once  been  the  victims  of  his  anger.b  But  as 
the  city  became  more  accustomed  to  a  practical  independ- 
ence, and  the  Pope  rose  to  a  predominance,  real  if  not  yet 
legal,  his  tone  grew  bolder  than  that  of  the  Eastern  patri- 
archs. In  the  controversies  that  had  raged  in  the  Church, 
he  had  had  the  wisdom  or  good  fortune  to  espouse  (though 

b  This  befel  Pope  Martin  I,  as  in  earlier  days  Sylverius. 


38  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  IV.  not  always  from  the  first)0  the  orthodox  side  :  it  was  now 
by  another  quarrel  of  religion  that  his  deliverance  from  an 
unwelcome  yoke  was  accomplished. 

iconoclastic         The  Emperor  Leo,  born  among  the  Isaurian  mountains, 

controversy,  wnere  a  simpler  faith  may  yet  have  lingered,  and  stung 
by  the  Mohammedan  taunt  of  idolatry,  determined  to 
abolish  the  worship  of  images,  which  seemed  to  be  fast 
obscuring  the  more  spiritual  part  of  Christianity.  An 
attempt  which  had  been  sufficient  to  cause  tumults  among 
the  submissive  populations  of  the  East  excited  in  Italy  a 
fiercer  commotion.  The  people  rose  with  one  heart  in 
defence  of  what  had  become  to  them  more  than  a  symbol : 
the  exarch  was  slain :  the  Pope,  though  unwilling  to  sever 
himself  from  the  lawful  head  and  protector  of  the  Church, 
must  yet  resist  and  rebuke  the  prince  whom  he  could  not 
reclaim  from  so  hateful  a  heresy. d  Liudprand,  king  of 
the  Lombards,  improved  his  opportunity.  Falling  on  the 
Exarchate  as  the  champion  of  images,  on  Rome  as  the 
pretended  ally  of  the  Emperor,  he  overran  the  one,  and  all 
but  succeeded  in  capturing  the  other.  Overawing  Liud- 
prand by  the  majesty  of  his  office,  the  Pope  escaped  for 
the  moment,  but  he  saw  his  peril.  Placed  between  a 
heretic  and  an  invader,  he  turned  his  gaze  beyond  the 
Alps,  to  a  Catholic  chief  who  had  just  achieved  a  signal 
deliverance  for  Christendom  by  his  defeat  of  the  Spanish 

A.D.  732.  Musulmans  on  the  field  of  Poitiers.  Gregory  II,  though 
his  reluctance  to  break  with  the  Eastern  Empire  led  him 
to  dissuade  the  North  Italians  from  the  notion  of  setting 
up  an  Emperor  against  Leo,e  had  already  opened  commu- 

c  Vigilius  in  the  days  of  Justinian,  and  Honorius  I  in  those  of  Heraclius, 
had  lapsed  for  a  time  into  error. 

d  See  Note  III  at  end. 

e  '  Ammonebat  ne  a  fide  vel  amore  imperii  Romani  desisterent.'  —  Liber 
Pontificalis,  ed.  Duchesne,  vol.  i.  p.  407.  So  Paulus  Diaconus  (ch.  xliv)  : 
'  Omnis  Ravennae  exercitus  vel  Venetiarum  talibus  iussis  [the  command  to 


THE   EMPIRE   RESTORED   IN   THE   WEST  39 

nications  with  Charles  Martel,  mayor  of  the  palace,  and  CHAP.  iv. 
virtual  ruler  of  the  Prankish  realm.     As  the  crisis  becomes    The  Popes 
more  pressing,  Gregory  III  (who  had  excommunicated  the  "ff^J^j 
Iconoclasts  in  a  synod  at  Rome)  finds  in  the  same  quarter 
his  only  hope,  and  appeals  to  him,  in  urgent  letters,  to 
hasten  to  the  succour  of  Holy  Church.1     Some  accounts 
add  that  Charles  was  offered,  in  the  name  of  the  Roman 
people,  the  office  of  consul  and  patrician.     It  is  at  least 
certain  that  here  begins  the  connection  of  the  old  imperial 
seat  with  the  rising  Germanic  power  :  here  first  the  pontiff 
leads  a  political  movement,  and  shakes  off  the  ties  that 
bound   him    to   his   legitimate    sovereign.      Charles   died 
before   he   could  obey  the    call  ;   but   his  son  Pipin  (sur- 
named  the  Short)  made  good  use  of  the  new  friendship 
with  Rome.     He  was  the  third  of  his  family  who  had  ruled 
the  Franks  with  the  full  power  of  a  monarch  :  it  seemed 
time  to  abolish  the  pageant  of  Merovingian  royalty  ;  yet  a 
departure  from  the  ancient  line  might  shock  the  feelings 
of  the  people.     A  course  was  taken  whose  dangers  no  one 
then    foresaw  :    the    Holy    See,    now  for    the    first    time 
invoked  as  an  international  or  supranational  power,  pro- 
nounced the  deposition  of  the  feeble   Merovingian   Chil-  A.D.  750-51. 
deric,  and  gave  to  the  royal  office  of  his  successor  Pipin  a 
sanctity  hitherto  unknown  ;    adding  to  the  old  Prankish 
election,  which  consisted  in  raising  the  chief  on  a  shield 
amid   the   clash   of    arms,    the    Roman   diadem   and   the 
Hebrew   rite   of  anointing.     The   compact   between   the  pipin 
chair  of  Peter  and  the  Teutonic  throne  was  hardly  sealed,  Patrician 
when  the  latter  was  summoned  to  discharge  its  share  of 


the  duties.     Twice  did  Aistulf  the  Lombard  assail  Rome,  A.D.754. 

destroy  images]  uno  animo  restiterunt,  et  nisi  eos  prohibuisset  Pontifex,  im- 
peratorem  super  se  constituere  fuissent  aggressi.' 

f  Letter  in  Codex  Carolinus,  in  Muratori's  Scriptores  Rerum  Italicarumt 
vol.  Hi  (part  2nd),  p.  75,  addressed  '  Subregulo  Carolo.' 


40  THE   HOLY  ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  iv.  twice  did  Pipin  descend  to  the  rescue  :  the  second  time  at 
the  bidding  of  a  letter  written  in  the  name  of  St.  Peter 
himself.8  Aistulf's  resistance  was  easily  overcome ;  and 
the  Frank  bestowed  on  the  Papal  chair  all  that  had  be- 
longed to  the  Exarchate  in  North  Italy,  receiving  as  the 
meed  of  his  services  the  title  of  Patrician.h 

import  of  As  a  foreshadowing  of  the  higher  dignity  that  was  to  fol- 

low, this  title  requires  a  passing  notice.  Introduced  by  Con- 
stantine  at  a  time  when  its  original  meaning  had  been  long 
forgotten,  it  was  designed  to  be,  and  for  awhile  remained, 
the  name  not  of  an  office  but  of  a  rank,  the  highest  after 
those  of  emperor  and  consul.  As  such,  it  was  usually  con- 
ferred upon  provincial  governors  of  the  first  class,  and  in 
time  also  upon  barbarian  potentates  whom  the  imperial 
court  might  wish  to  flatter  or  conciliate.  Thus  Odoacer, 
Theodorich,  the  Burgundian  king  Sigismund,  Clovis  him- 
self, had  all  received  it  from  the  Eastern  Emperor;  so  too 
in  still  later  times  it  was  given  to  Saracenic  and  Bulgarian 
princes.1  In  the  sixth  and  seventh  centuries  an  invariable 

8  Letter  in  Cod.  Carol.  (Mur.  R.  S.  I.  iii.  [2.]  p.  96),  a  strange  mixture  of 
passionate  adjurations,  dexterous  appeals  to  Prankish  pride,  and  long  scrip- 
tural quotations :  '  Declaratum  quippe  est  quod  super  omnes  gentes  vestra 
Francorum  gens  prona  mihi  Apostolo  Dei  Petro  exstitit,  et  ideo  ecclesiam 
quam  mihi  Dominus  tradidit  vobis  per  manus  Vicarii  mei  commendavi.' 

h  The  exact  date  when  Pipin  received  the  title  cannot  be  made  out. 
Pope  Stephen's  next  letter  (p.  96  of  Mur.  iii)  is  addressed  '  Pipino,  Carolo  et 
.  Carolomanno  patriciis.'  And  so  the  Chronicon  Casinense  (Mur.  iv.  273)  says  it 
was  first  given  to  Pipin.  Probably  it  was  not  formally  conferred  on  Charles 
Martel,  although  one  or  two  documents  may  be  quoted  in  which  it  is  used 
of  him.  As  one  of  these  is  a  letter  of  Pope  Gregory  IPs,  the  explanation 
may  be  that  the  title  was  offered  or  intended  to  be  offered  to  him,  although 
never  accepted  by  him.  The  nature  and  extent  of  Pipin's  donation  (which 
cannot  be  found  in  any  extant  document)  have  been  much  disputed,  but 
some  sort  of  gift  was  evidently  made. 

1  The  title  of  Patrician  appears  even  in  the  remote  West :  it  stands  in  a 
charter  of  Ini  the  West  Saxon  king,  and  in  one  given  by  Richard  of  Nor- 
mandy in  A.D.  1015.  Ducange,  s.v. 


THE   EMPIRE   RESTORED   IN   THE   WEST  41 

practice  seems  to  have  attached  it  to  the  East  Roman  CHAP.  iv. 
viceroys  of  Italy,  and  thus,  as  we  may  conjecture,  a  natural 
confusion  of  ideas  had  made  men  take  it  to  be,  in  some 
sense,  an  official  title,  conveying  an  extensive  though  un- 
defined authority,  and  implying  in  particular  the  duty  of 
overseeing  the  Church  and  promoting  her  temporal  inter- 
ests. It  was  doubtless  with  such  a  meaning  that  the 
Romans  and  their  bishop  bestowed  it  upon  the  Prankish 
kings,  acting  quite  without  legal  right,  for  it  could  emanate 
only  from  the  Emperor,  but  choosing  it  as  the  title  which 
bound  its  possessor  to  render  to  the  Church  support  and 
defence  against  her  Lombard  foes.  Hence  the  phrase  is 
always  '  Patricins  Romanorum '  /  not,  as  formerly,  '  Patri- 
cius '  alone :  hence  it  is  usually  associated  with  the  terms 
( defensor'  and  ' protector.'  And  since  'defence'  implies  a 
corresponding  measure  of  obedience  on  the  part  of  those 
who  profit  by  it,  there  must  have  been  conceded  to  the 
new  patrician  more  or  less  of  positive  authority  in  Rome, 
although  not  such  as  to  extinguish  either  the  practical 
power  of  the  Pope  or  the  titular  supremacy  of  the  Em- 
peror. 

So   long  indeed  as   the   Franks  were   separated   by  a  Extinction 
hostile    kingdom    from    their   new  allies,   this    control   of  °fthe  Lom 

bard  kittg- 

Rome  remained  little  better  than  nominal.     But  when  on  dom  by 
Pipin's  death  the  restless  Lombards  again  took  up  arms   Charles, 
and  menaced  the  possessions  of  the  Church,  Pipin's  son 
Charles,    whom    we    commonly    call    Charlemagne,    swept  ' 
down  like  a  whirlwind  from  the  Alps  at  the  call  of  Pope 
Hadrian,  seized   King  Desiderius  in    his    capital,   himself 
assumed  the   Lombard   crown,  and  made  Northern   Italy 
thenceforward  an  integral  part  of  the  Prankish   Empire. 
Proceeding  to  Rome  at  the  head  of  his  victorious  army, 
the  first  of  a  long  line  of  Teutonic  kings  who  were  to 
experience   alternately   her   love    and   her   hate,    he   was 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  IV. 
A.D.  774. 


Charles  and 
Hadrian. 


received  by  Hadrian  with  distinguished  honours,  and  wel- 
comed by  the  people  as  their  leader  and  deliverer.  Yet 
even  then,  whether  out  of  policy  or  from  that  sentiment 
of  reverence  to  which  his  ambitious  mind  did  not  refuse 
to  bow,  he  was  moderate  in  claims  of  jurisdiction,  he 
yielded  to  the  pontiff  the  place  of  honour  in  processions, 
and  renewed,  although  in  the  guise  of  a  lord  and  con- 
queror, the  gift  of  the  Exarchate  and  Pentapolis,  which 
Pipin  had  made  to  the  Roman  Church  twenty  years  before. 
It  is  with  a  strange  sense,  half  of  sadness,  half  of 
amusement,  that  in  watching  the  progress  of  this  grand 
historical  drama  we  recognize  a  mixture  of  higher  and 
lower  motives  in  the  minds  of  the  chief  actors.  The 
Prankish  king  and  the  Roman  pontiff  were  for  the  time 
the  two  most  powerful  forces  that  urged  the  movement 
of  the  world,  leading  it  on  by  swift  steps  to  a  mighty 
crisis  of  its  fate,  themselves  guided,  as  it  might  well  seem, 
by  the  purest  zeal  for  its  spiritual  welfare.  Their  words 
and  acts,  their  character  and  bearing  in  the  sight  of 
expectant  Christendom,  were  worthy  of  men  destined  to 
leave  an  indelible  impress  on  their  own  and  many  suc- 
ceeding ages.  Nevertheless  in  them  too  appears  the 
undercurrent  of  material  interests.  The  lofty  and  fervent 
mind  of  Charles  was  not  free  from  the  stirrings  of  per- 
sonal ambition  :  yet  these  may  be  excused  as  being  almost 
inseparable  from  an  intense  and  restless  genius,  which, 
be  it  never  so  unselfish  in  its  ends,  must  in  pursuing 
them  fix  upon  everything  its  grasp  and  raise  out  of  every- 
thing its  monument.  So  too  in  the  policy  of  the  Popes 
the  desire  to  secure  spiritual  independence  was  mingled 
with  less  noble  motives.  Ever  since  the  disappearance 
of  an  Emperor  from  Italian  soil  had  virtually  emancipated 
the  ecclesiastical  potentate  from  secular  control,  the  most 
abiding  object  of  his  schemes  and  prayers  had  been  the 


THE   EMPIRE   RESTORED   IN   THE   WEST  43 

acquisition  of  territorial  wealth  in  the  neighbourhood  of  CHAP.  iv. 
his  capital.  He  had  indeed  a  sort  of  justification,  for 
Rome,  a  city  with  neither  trade  nor  industry,  was  crowded 
with  poor,  for  whom  it  devolved  on  the  bishop  to  provide.1 
Yet  the  pursuit  was  one  which  could  not  fail  to  pervert 
the  purposes  of  the  Popes  and  give  a  sinister  character 
to  their  action.  It  was  this  fear  for  the  lands  of  the 
Church  more  than  for  religion  or  the  safety  of  the  city, 
neither  of  which  was  seriously  endangered  by  the  Lom- 
bard attacks,  that  had  prompted  their  passionate  appeals 
to  Charles  Martel  and  Pipin  ;  it  was  now  the  well-grounded 
hope  of  having  these  possessions  confirmed  and  extended 
by  Pipin's  greater  son  that  made  the  Roman  ecclesiastics 
so  forward  in  his  cause.  And  it  was  the  same  lust  after 
worldly  wealth  and  pomp,  mingled  with  the  dawning  pros- 
pect of  an  independent  principality,  that  now  began  to 
seduce  them  into  a  long  course  of  guile  and  intrigue. 
For  this  is  probably  the  very  time,  although  neither  the 
exact  date  nor  the  complicity  of  any  Pope  can  be  estab- 
lished, to  which  must  be  assigned  the  extraordinary  forgery 
of  the  Donation  of  Constantine,  whereby  it  was  pretended 
that  power  over  Italy  and  the  whole  West  had  been  granted 
by  the  first  Christian  Emperor  to  Pope  Sylvester  and  his 
successors  in  the  Chair  of  the  Apostle.k 

For  the  next  twenty-four  years  Italy  remained  quiet. 
The  government  of  Rome  was  carried  on  in  the  name  of 
the  Patrician  Charles,  although  it  does  not  appear  that  he 
sent  thither  any  official  representative ;  while  at  the  same 
time  both  the  city  and  the  Exarchate  continued  to  admit 
the  nominal  suzerainty  of  the  Eastern  Emperor,  employing 

J  Even  in  Theodorich's  days,  Cassiodorus  had  written  to  the  Pope  as 
guardian  of  the  humbler  classes :  '  Securitas  plebis  ad  vestram  respicit  famam, 
cui  divinitus  est  commissa  custodia.' —  Variar.  ii.  157. 

k  See  p.  99,  post,  and  Note  IV  at  end. 


44  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  iv.      the  years  of  his  reign  to  date  documents.     Southern  Italy, 
which  had  received  only  a  slight  infusion  of  Teutonic  blood, 
and  to  which  the  Greek  tongue  —  its  use  recently  increased 
by  an  immigration  of  Greek  refugees  during  the  Icono- 
clastic troubles  —  was  still  familiar,  had  remained  loyal  to 
the  East  Roman  princes,  and  continued  to  form  part  of 
their  realm  till  the  rise  of  the   Norman  kingdom  in  the 
Accession  of    eleventh  century.     In  A.D.  796  Leo  the  Third  succeeded 
Pope  Leo  in,   pOpe  Hadrian,  and  signalized  his  devotion  to  the  Prankish 

A.D.  796. 

throne  by  sending  to  Charles  the  banner  of  the  city  and 
the  keys  of  the  holiest  of  all  Rome's  shrines,  the  confession 
of  St.  Peter,  asking  that  some  officer  should  be  deputed  to 
the  city  to  receive  from  the  people  their  oath  of  allegiance 
to  the  Patrician.  He  had  soon  need  to  seek  the  Patrician's 
help  for  himself.  In  A.D.  798  a  sedition  broke  out :  the 
Pope,  going  in  solemn  procession  from  the  Lateran  to  the 
church  of  S.  Lorenzo  in  Lucina,  was  attacked  by  a  band 
of  armed  men,  headed  by  two  officials  of  his  court,  nephews 
of  his  predecessor ;  was  wounded  and  left  for  dead,  and 
with  difficulty  succeeded  in  escaping  to  Spoleto,  whence 
he  fled  northward  into  the  Prankish  lands.  Charles  had 
led  his  army  against  the  revolted  Saxons :  thither  Leo 
following  overtook  him  at  Paderborn  in  Westphalia.  The 
king  received  with  respect  his  spiritual  father,  entertained 
and  conferred  with  him  for  some  time,  and  at  length  sent 
him  back  to  Rome  under  the  escort  of  Angilbert,  one  of 
his  trustiest  ministers ;  promising  to  follow  ere  long  in 
person.  After  some  months  peace  was  restored  in  Saxony, 
and  in  the  autumn  of  799  Charles  descended  from  the  Alps 
once  more,  while  Leo  revolved  deeply  the  great  scheme  for 
whose  accomplishment  the  time  was  now  ripe. 

Belief  in  the        Three  hundred  and  twenty-four  years  had  passed  since 
Roman  ^e  jast  caesar  of  the  West  resigned  his  power  into  the 

extinct.*'       hands  of  the  senate,  and  left  to  his  Eastern  brother  the 


THE   EMPIRE   RESTORED   IN   THE  WEST  45 

sole  headship  of  the  Roman  world.  To  the  latter  Italy  CHAP.  iv. 
had  from  that  time  been  nominally  subject ;  but  it  was 
only  during  one  brief  interval  between  the  death  of  Teia 
the  last  Ostrogothic  king  and  the  descent  of  Alboin  the 
first  Lombard  that  his  power  had  been  really  effective. 
In  the  further  provinces,  Gaul,  Spain,  Britain,  it  was  only 
a  memory.  But  the  idea  of  a  Roman  Empire  as  a  neces- 
sary part  of  the  world's  order  had  not  vanished  :  it  had 
been  admitted  by  those  who  seemed  to  be  destroying  it ; 
it  had  been  cherished  by  the  Church ;  it  was  still  recalled 
by  laws  and  customs ;  it  was  dear  to  the  subject  popula- 
tions, who  fondly  looked  back  to  the  days  when  despotism 
was  at  least  mitigated  by  peace  and  order.  We  have  seen 
the  Teuton  endeavouring  everywhere  to  identify  himself 
with  the  system  he  overthrew.  As  Goths,  Burgundians, 
and  Franks  sought  the  title  of  consul  or  patrician,  as  the 
Lombard  kings  when  they  renounced  their  Arianism  styled 
themselves  Flavii,  so  even  in  distant  England  the  fierce 
Saxon  and  Anglian  conquerors  used  the  names  of  Roman 
dignities,  and  after  a  time  began  to  call  themselves  impera- 
tores  and  basileis  of  Britain.  Within  the  last  century  and 
a  half  the  rise  of  Mohammedanism,1  a  vast  religious  com- 
munity which  was  also  a  vast  temporal  dominion,  had 
brought  out  the  common  Christianity  of  Europe  into  a 
fuller  relief,  while  the  march  of  Saracenic  invasion  exposed 
Italy  to  terrible  dangers.  The  False  Prophet  had  left  one 
religion,  one  Empire,  one  Commander  of  the  faithful :  the 
Christian  commonwealth  needed  more  than  ever  an  effi- 
cient head  and  centre.  Such  leadership  it  could  no  wise 

1  From  A.D.  712,  when  the  Musulmans  conquered  Spain,  till  the  fall  of  the 
Ommiyad  dynasty  in  A.D.  750,  the  power  of  the  Khalifate  stretched  from  the 
Persian  Gulf  to  the  Atlantic.  After  A.D.  800  the  Roman  Empire  in  the  East 
and  the  Romano-Frankish  Empire  in  the  West  corresponded  to  the  two 
Khalifates  of  Bagdad  and  Cordova. 


46 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  IV. 


Motives  of 
the  Pope. 


find  in  the  Court  on  the  Bosphorus,  shaken  by  the  Arab 
conquests,  and  growing  ever  more  alien  to  the  West.  The 
name  of  '  respublica,'  permanent  at  the  elder  Rome,  had 
become  long  since  obsolete  in  the  Eastern  Empire.  Its 
government,  which  had  from  the  first  been  tinged  with  a 
Greco-Asiatic  colour,  had  now  drifted  away  from  its  ancient 
traditions  into  the  forms  of  an  Oriental  despotism.  Claudian 
had  already  sneered  at  '  Greek  Quirites  ' : m  the  general 
use,  since  Justinian's  time,  of  the  Greek  tongue,  and  the 
difference  of  manners  and  usages,  made  the  taunt  now 
more  deserved.  The  Pope  had  no  reason  to  wish  well  to 
the  East  Roman  princes,  who,  while  insulting  his  weak- 
ness, had  given  him  no  help  against  the  savage  Lombards, 
and  who  for  nearly  seventy  years  n  had  been  contaminated 
by  a  heresy  the  more  odious  that  it  touched  not  speculative 
points  of  doctrine  but  the  most  familiar  usages  of  worship. 
In  North  Italy  their  power  was  extinct :  no  pontiff  since 
Zacharias  had  asked  their  confirmation  of  his  election : 
nay,  the  appointment  of  the  intruding  Frank  to  the 
patriciate,  an  office  which  it  belonged  to  the  Emperor  to 
confer,  was  of  itself  an  act  of  rebellion.  Nevertheless  their 
rights  subsisted  in  theory :  they  were  still,  and  while  they 
retained  the  imperial  name  must  so  long  continue,  titular 
sovereigns  of  the  Roman  city.  Even  Pope  Hadrian  had 
addressed  Constantine  VI  with  studied  humility.  Nor 
could  the  spiritual  head  of  Christendom  dispense  with  the 
temporal  head ;  without  the  Roman  Empire  there  could 
not  be  a  Roman  nor  by  necessary  consequence  (as  was 


m  '  Plaudentem  cerne  senatum 
Et  Byzantines  proceres,  Graiosque  Quirites.' 

—  In  Eutrop.  ii.  135. 

n  Several  Emperors  during  this  period  had  been  patrons  of  images,  as  was 
Irene  at  the  moment  of  which  I  write :  the  stain  nevertheless  adhered  to 
their  government  as  a  whole. 


THE   EMPIRE   RESTORED   IN   THE   WEST  47 

believed)  a  Catholic  and  Apostolic  Church.0  For,  as  will  CHAP.  iv. 
be  shewn  more  fully  hereafter,  men  could  not  separate  in 
fact  what  was  indissoluble  in  thought :  Christianity  seemed 
to  stand  or  fall  along  with  the  great  Christian  state  :  they 
were  but  two  names  for  the  same  thing.  Moved  by  these 
ideas  and  pressed  by  these  needs  the  Pope  took  a  step 
which  some  among  his  predecessors  are  said  to  have  al- 
ready contemplated,11  and  towards  which  the  events  of  the 
last  fifty  years  had  pointed.  The  moment  was  opportune. 
The  widowed  Empress  Irene,  famous  alike  for  her  beauty, 
her  talents,  and  her  crimes,  had  deposed  and  blinded  her 
son  Constantine  VI :  a  woman,  a  usurper,  almost  a  parri- 
cide, sullied  the  throne  of  the  world.  By  what  right,  it 
might  well  be  asked,  did  the  factions  of  a  distant  city  in 
the  East  impose  a  master  on  the  original  seat  of  empire  ? 
It  was  time  to  provide  better  for  the  most  august  of  human 
offices  :  an  election  at  Rome  was  as  valid  as  at  Constan- 
tinople :  the  possessor  of  the  real  power  should  be  clothed 
with  the  outward  dignity  also.  Nor  could  it  be  doubted 
where  that  possessor  was  to  be  found.  The  Frank  had 
been  always  faithful  to  Rome :  his  baptism  was  the  enlist- 
ment of  a  new  barbarian  auxiliary.  His  services  against 
Arian  heretics  and  Lombard  marauders,  against  the  Sara- 
cen of  Spain  and  the  Avar  of  Pannonia,  had  earned  him 
the  title  of  Champion  of  the  Faith  and  Defender  of  the 
Holy  See.  He  was  now  unquestioned  lord  of  Western 

0  The  nature  of  the  connection  between  the  conception  of  the  Roman 
Empire  and  the  conception  of  a  Catholic  and  Apostolic  Church  —  things 
which  to  a  modern,  remembering  the  long  struggle  of  Church  and  State,  may 
seem  naturally  antagonistic,  will  be  explained  in  chapter  viii.  The  interest 
of  history  lies  not  least  in  this,  that  it  shews  us  how  men  have  at  different 
times  entertained  wholly  different  notions  respecting  the  relation  to  one 
another  of  the  same  ideas  or  the  same  institutions. 

P  Monachus  Sangallensis,  De  Gesfis  Karoli ;  in  Pertz,  Monumenta  Ger- 
maniae  Historica,  Scriptores,  ii.  pp.  731  sqq. 


48 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  iv.  Europe,  whose  subject  nations,  Celtic  and  Teutonic,  were 
eager  to  be  called  by  his  name  and  to  adopt  his  customs.*1 
In  Charles,  the  hero  who  united  under  one  sceptre  so 
many  races,  and  whose  religious  spirit  made  him  appear  to 
rule  all  as  the  vicegerent  of  God,  the  pontiff  might  well 
see,  as  later  ages  saw,  the  new  golden  head  of  a  second 
image,1  erected  on  the  ruins  of  that  whose  mingled  iron 
and  clay  seemed  crumbling  to  nothingness  behind  the  im- 
pregnable bulwarks  of  Constantinople. 

Coronation  At  length  the  Prankish  host  entered  Rome.  The 
of  Charles  at  charges  brought  against  the  Pope  were  heard;  his  inno- 
A.D.  800.  cence,  already  vindicated  by  a  miracle,  was  pronounced 
by  the  Patrician  in  full  synod ;  his  accusers  were  con- 
demned in  his  stead.  Charles  remained  in  the  city  for 
some  weeks ;  and  on  Christmas  Day,  A.D.  8oo,8  he  heard 
mass  in  the  basilica  of  St.  Peter.  On  the  spot  where  now 
the  gigantic  dome  of  Bramante  and  Michael  Angelo  towers 
over  the  buildings  of  the  modern  city,  the  spot  which 
tradition  had  hallowed  as  that  of  the  Apostle's  martyrdom, 
Constantine  the  Great  had  erected  the  oldest  and  stateliest 
temple  of  Christian  Rome.  Nothing  could  be  less  like  than 
was  this  basilica  to  those  Northern  cathedrals,  shadowy, 
fantastic,  irregular,  crowded  with  pillars,  fringed  all  round 
by  clustering  shrines  and  chapels,  which  are  to  most  of  us 
the  types  of  mediaeval  architecture.  In  its  plan  and  deco- 

•l  So  Pope  Gregory  the  Great  had  written  two  centuries  earlier :  '  Quanto 
caeteros  homines  regia  dignitas  antecedit,  tanto  caeterarum  gentium  regna 
regni  Francorum  culmen  excellit.'  —  Ep.  v.  6. 

Had  the  Lombards  not  been  neighbours  and  enemies  of  the  See  of  Rome, 
as  well  as  anti-clerical  in  their  sentiments  and  habits,  the  restoration  of  an 
Empire  in  the  West  would  probably  have  fallen  to  them  instead  of  to  the 
Franks. 

r  Alciatus,  De  Formula  imperil  Romani. 

8  Or  rather,  according  to  the  then  prevailing  practice  of  beginning  the 
year  from  Christmas  Day,  A.D.  801. 


THE   EMPIRE   RESTORED   IN   THE  WEST  49 

rations,  in  the  spacious  sunny  hall,  the  roof  plain  as  that  CHAP.  IV. 
of  a  Greek  temple,  the  long  row  of  Corinthian  columns, 
the  vivid  mosaics  on  its  walls,  in  its  brightness,  its  stern- 
ness, its  simplicity,  it  had  preserved  every  feature  of  Roman 
art,  and  had  remained  a  perfect  expression  of  Roman  char- 
acter.* Out  of  the  transept  a  flight  of  steps  led  up  to  the 
high  altar  underneath  and  just  beyond  the  great  arch,  the 
arch  of  triumph  as  it  was  called  :  behind  in  the  semicircular 
apse  sat  the  clergy,  rising  tier  above  tier  around  its  walls ; 
in  the  midst,  high  above  the  rest,  and  looking  down  past 
the  altar  over  the  multitude,  was  placed  the  bishop's 
throne,  itself  the  curule  chair  of  some  forgotten  magis- 
trate.11 From  that  chair  the  Pope  now  rose,  as  the  reading 
of  the  Gospel  ended,  advanced  to  where  Charles,  who  had 
exchanged  his  simple  Prankish  dress  for  the  sandals  and 
the  chlamys  of  a  Roman  patrician,  knelt  in  prayer  by  the 
high  altar,  and  as  in  the  sight  of  all  he  placed  upon  the 
brow  of  the  barbarian  chieftain  the  diadem  of  the  Caesars, 
then  bent  in  obeisance  before  him,  the  church  rang  to  the 
shout  of  the  multitude,  again  free,  again  the  lords  and 
centre  of  the  world,  'To  Charles  Augustus,  crowned  by 
God,  the  great  and  peace-giving  Emperor,  be  life  and 
victory.'  x  In  that  shout,  echoed  by  the  Franks  without, 
was  pronounced  the  union,  so  long  in  preparation,  so 
mighty  in  its  consequences,  of  the  Roman  and  the  Teuton, 
of  the  memories  and  the  civilization  of  the  South  with  the 
fresh  energy  of  the  North,  and  from  that  moment  modern 
history  begins. 

*  An  elaborate  description  of  old  St.  Peter's  may  be  found  in  Bunsen's  and 
Platner's  Beschreibung  der  Stadt  Rom  ;  with  which  may  be  compared  Bunsen's 
work  on  the  Basilicas  of  Rome. 

u  See  Note  V  at  end. 

*  '  Karolo  Augusto  a  Deo  coronato  magno  et  pacifico  imperatori  vita  et 
victoria.' 


CHAPTER  V 

EMPIRE   AND    POLICY    OF    CHARLES 

CHAP.  v.  THE  coronation  of  Charles  is  not  only  the  central  event 

of  the  Middle  Ages,  it  is  also  one  of  those  very  few  events 
of  which,  taking  them  singly,  it  may  be  said  that  if  they 
had  not  happened,  the  history  of  the  world  would  have 
been  different.  In  one  sense  indeed  it  has  scarcely  a 
parallel.  The  assassins  of  Julius  Caesar  thought  that  they 
had  saved  Rome  from  monarchy,  but  monarchy  came  in- 
evitable in  the  next  generation.  The  conversion  of  Con- 
stantine  changed  the  face  of  the  world,  but  Christianity 
was  spreading  fast,  and  its  ultimate  triumph  was  only  a 
question  of  time.  Had  Columbus  never  spread  his  sails, 
the  secret  of  the  Western  sea  would  yet  have  been  pierced 
by  some  later  voyager  :  had  Charles  V  broken  his  safe- 
conduct  to  Luther,  the  voice  silenced  at  Wittenberg  would 
have  been  taken  up  by  echoes  elsewhere.  But  if  the 
Roman  Empire  had  not  been  restored  in  the  West  in  the 
person  of  Charles,  it  would  never  have  been  restored  at  all, 
and  the  endless  train  of  consequences  for  good  and  for 
evil  that  followed  could  not  have  been.  Why  this  was  so 
may  be  seen  by  examining  the  history  of  the  next  two 
centuries.  In  that  day,  as  through  all  the  Dark  and  Mid- 
dle Ages,  two  forces  were  striving  for  the  mastery.  The 
one  was  the  instinct  of  separation,  disorder,  anarchy, 
caused  by  the  ungoverned  impulses  and  barbarous  igno- 
rance of  the  great  bulk  of  mankind ;  the  other  was  that 
passionate  longing  of  the  better  minds  for  a  formal  unity 

5° 


EMPIRE   AND   POLICY  OF  CHARLES  51 

of  government,  which  had  its  historical  basis  in  the  mem-  CHAP.  v. 
ories  of  the  old  Roman  Empire,  and  its  most  constant 
expression  in  the  devotion  to  a  visible  and  catholic  Church. 
The  former  tendency  was,  in  secular  affairs,  the  stronger, 
but  the  latter,  used  and  stimulated  by  an  extraordinary 
genius  like  Charles,  achieved  in  the  year  800  a  victory 
whose  results  were  never  to  be  lost.  When  the  hero  was 
gone,  the  returning  wave  of  anarchy  and  barbarism  swept 
up  violent  as  ever,  yet  it  could  not  wholly  obliterate  the 
past :  the  Empire,  maimed  and  shattered  though  it  was, 
had  struck  its  roots  too  deep  to  be  overthrown  by  force, 
and  when  it  perished  at  last,  perished  from  inner  decay. 
It  was  just  because  men  felt  that  no  one  less  than  Charles 
could  have  won  such  a  triumph  over  the  evils  of  the  time, 
by  framing  and  establishing  a  gigantic  scheme  of  govern- 
ment, that  the  excitement  and  hope  and  joy  which  the 
coronation  evoked  were  so  intense.  Their  best  evidence 
is  perhaps  to  be  found  not  in  the  records  of  that  time 
itself,  but  in  the  cries  of  lamentation  that  broke  forth 
when  the  Empire  began  to  dissolve  towards  the  close  of 
the  ninth  century,  in  the  marvellous  legends  which  at- 
tached themselves  to  the  name  of  Charles  the  Emperor, 
a  hero  of  whom  any  exploit  was  credible,*  in  the  devout 
admiration  wherewith  his  German  successors  looked  back 
to,  and  strove  in  all  things  to  imitate,  their  all  but  super- 
human prototype. 

»  Before  the  end  of  the  tenth  century  we  find  the  monk  Benedict  of 
Soracte  ascribing  to  Charles  an  expedition  to  Constantinople  and  Palestine, 
with  other  marvellous  exploits.  A  twelfth-century  window  in  the  cathedral 
of  St.  Denis  represents  his  reception  at  Constantinople.  The  romance  which 
passes  under  the  name  of  Archbishop  Turpin  is  well  known.  All  the  best 
stories  about  Charles  —  and  some  of  them  are  very  good  —  may  be  found  in 
the  book  of  the  Monk  of  St.  Gall.  Many  refer  to  his  dealings  with  the  bish- 
ops, towards  whom  he  is  described  as  acting  like  a  good-humoured  school- 
master. 


52  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  v.  As  the  event  of  A.D.  800  made  an  unparalleled  impres- 

importofthe  siOn  on  those  who  lived  at  the  time,  so  has  it  engaged  the 
attention  of  men  in  succeeding  ages,  has  been  viewed  in 
the  most  opposite  lights,  and  become  the  theme  of  inter- 
minable controversies.  It  is  better  to  look  at  it  simply  as 
it  appeared  to  the  men  who  witnessed  it.  Here,  as  in  so 
many  other  cases,  may  be  seen  the  errors  into  which 
jurists  have  been  led  by  the  want  of  historical  feeling.  In 
rude  and  unsettled  states  of  society  men  respect  forms 
and  obey  facts,  while  careless  of  rules  and  principles.  In 
England,  for  example,  in  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  cen- 
turies, it  signified  comparatively  little  whether  an  aspirant 
to  the  throne  was  next  lawful  heir,  but  it  signified  a  great 
deal  whether  he  had  been  duly  crowned  and  was  supported 
by  a  strong  party.  Regarding  the  matter  thus,  it  is  not 
hard  to  see  why  those  who,  writing  seven  centuries  after- 
wards, judged  the  actors  of  A.D.  800  as  they  would  have 
judged  their  contemporaries,  should  have  misunderstood 
the  nature  of  that  which  then  came  to  pass.  Baronius 
and  Bellarmine,  Spanheim  and  Conring,  are  advocates 
bound  to  prove  a  thesis,  and  therefore  believing  it ;  nor 
does  either  party  find  any  lack  of  plausible  arguments. b 
But  canonist  and  civilian  alike  proceed  upon  strict  ecclesi- 
astical or  legal  principles,  and  no  such  principles  can  be 
found  in  the  case,  or  be  fitly  applied  to  it.  Neither  the 
instances  cited  by  the  Cardinal  from  the  Old  Testament 
of  the  power  of  priests  to  set  up  and  pull  down  princes, 
nor  those  which  shew  the  earlier  Emperors  controlling  the 
bishops  of  Rome,  really  meet  the  question.  Pope  Leo 
acted  not  as  having  alone  the  right  to  transfer  the  crown ; 
the  practice  of  hereditary  succession  and  the  theory  of 

b  Baronius,  Ann.,  ad  ann.  800;  Bellarminus,  De  translation  imperil 
Romani  adversus  Illyricum ;  Spanhemius,  De  ficta  translations  imperil ; 
Conringius,  De  imperio  Romano  Germanico. 


EMPIRE   AND   POLICY  OF  CHARLES  53 

popular  election  would  have  equally  excluded  such  a  claim.  CHAP.  v. 
He  was  the  spokesman  of  the  popular  will,  which,  identify- 
ing itself  with  the  sacerdotal  power,  hated  the  Easterns  and 
was  grateful  to  the  Franks.  Yet  he  was  also  something 
more.  The  act,  as  it  specially  affected  his  interests,  was 
mainly  his  work,  and  without  him  would  never  have  been 
brought  about  at  all.  It  was  natural  that  a  confusion  of 
his  secular  functions  as  leader  of  the  people,  and  his  spirit- 
ual as  consecrating  priest,  should  lay  the  foundation  of  the 
right  claimed  afterwards  of  raising  and  deposing  monarchs 
at  the  will  of  Christ's  vicar.  The  Emperor  was  passive 
throughout ;  he  did  not,  as  in  Lombardy,  appear  as  a  con- 
queror, but  was'  received  by  the  Pope  and  the  people  as 
a  friend  and  ally.  Rome  no  doubt  became  his  capital, 
but  it  had  already  obeyed  him  as  Patrician,  and  the  greatest 
fact  that  stood  out  to  posterity  from  the  whole  transaction 
was  that  the  crown  was,  if  not  bestowed,  yet  at  least  im- 
posed, by  the  hands  of  the  pontiff.  He  seemed  the 
divinely  appointed  agent  through  whom  the  will  of  God 
expressed  itself.0 

The  best  way  of  shewing  the  thoughts  and  motives  of  Contem- 
those  concerned  in  the  transaction  is  to  transcribe  the  t°rary 

accounts. 

narratives  of  three  contemporary,  or  almost  contemporary 
annalists,  two  of  them  German  and  one  Italian.  The 
Annals  of  Lauresheim  say :  — 

'And  because  the  name  of  Emperor  had  now  ceased 
among  the  Greeks,  and  their  Empire  was  possessed  by  a 
woman,  it  then  seemed  both  to  Leo  the  Pope  himself,  and 
to  all  the  holy  fathers  who  were  present  in  the  self-same 
council,  as  well  as  to  the  rest  of  the  Christian  people,  that 
they  ought  to  take  to  be  Emperor  Charles  king  of  the 
Franks,  who  held  Rome  herself,  where  the  Caesars  had 
always  been  wont  to  sit,  and  all  the  other  regions  which 

c  Cf.  Greenwood,  Cathedra  Petri,  vol.  iii.  p.  109. 


54  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  v.  he  ruled  through  Italy  and  Gaul  and  Germany  ;  and  inas- 
much as  God  had  given  all  these  lands  into  his  hand,  it 
seemed  right  that  with  the  help  of  God  and  at  the  prayer 
of  the  whole  Christian  people  he  should  have  the  name  of 
Emperor  also.  Whose  petition  king  Charles  willed  not  to 
refuse,  but  submitting  himself  with  all  humility  to  God, 
and  at  the  prayer  of  the  priests  and  of  the  whole  Christian 
people,  on  the  day  of  the  nativity  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
he  took  on  himself  the  name  of  Emperor,  being  conse- 
crated by  the  lord  Pope  Leo.' d 

Very  similar  in  substance  is  the  account  of  the  Chronicle 
of  Moissac  (ad  ann.  801):  — 

'Now  when  the  king  upon  the  most  holy  day  of  the 
Lord's  birth  was  rising  to  the  mass  after  praying  before 
the  confession  of  the  blessed  Peter  the  Apostle,  Leo  the 
Pope,  with  the  consent  of  all  the  bishops  and  priests  and 
of  the  senate  of  the  Franks  and  likewise  of  the  Romans, 
set  a  golden  crown  upon  his  head,  the  Roman  people  also 
shouting  aloud.  And  when  the  people  had  made  an  end 
of  chanting  the  Laudes,  he  was  adored  by  the  Pope  after 
the  manner  of  the  emperors  of  old.  For  this  also  was  done 
by  the  will  of  God.  For  while  the  said  Emperor  abode  at 
Rome  certain  men  were  brought  unto  him,  who  said  that 
the  name  of  Emperor  had  ceased  among  the  Greeks,  and 
that  among  them  the  Empire  was  held  by  a  woman  called 
Irene,  who  had  by  guile  laid  hold  on  her  son  the  Emperor, 
and  put  out  his  eyes,  and  taken  the  Empire  to  herself,  as 
it  is  written  of  Athaliah  in  the  Book  of  the  Kings ;  which 
when  Leo  the  Pope  and  all  the  assembly  of  the  bishops 
and  priests  and  abbots  heard,  and  the  senate  of  the  Franks 
and  all  the  elders  of  the  Romans,  they  took  counsel  with 
the  rest  of  the  Christian  people,  that  they  should  name 
Charles  king  of  the  Franks  to  be  Emperor,  seeing  that 

d  Ann.  LauresA.,  ap.  Pertz,  M.  G.  f/.,  Script,  i.  p.  38. 


EMPIRE   AND   POLICY   OF  CHARLES  55 

he  held  Rome  the  mother  of   empire  where  the  Caesars  CHAP.  v. 
and  Emperors  were  always  used  to  sit ;  and  that  the  heathen 
might  not  mock  the  Christians  if  the  name  of  Emperor 
should  have  ceased  among  the  Christians.' e 

These  two  accounts  are  both  from  a  German  source: 
that  which  follows  is  Roman,  written  probably  within  some 
fifty  or  sixty  years  of  the  event.  It  is  taken  from  the  Life 
of  Leo  III  in  the  Vitae  Pontificum  Romanorum,  which  used 
to  pass  under  the  name  of  Anastasius  the  papal  librarian. 

'After  these  things  came  the  day  of  the  birth  of  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  all  men  were  again  gathered  to- 
gether in  the  aforesaid  basilica  of  the  blessed  Peter  the 
Apostle :  and  then  the  gracious  and  venerable  pontiff  did 
with  his  own  hands  crown  Charles  with  a  very  precious 
crown.  Then  all  the  faithful  people  of  Rome,  seeing  the 
defence  that  he  gave  and  the  love  that  he  bare  to  the 
Holy  Roman  Church  and  her  Vicar,  did  by  the  will  of 
God  and  of  the  blessed  Peter,  the  keeper  of  the  keys  of 
the  kingdom  of  heaven,  cry  with  one  accord  with  a  loud 
voice,  "  To  Charles,  the  most  pious  Augustus,  crowned  of 
God,  the  great  and  peace-giving  Emperor,  be  life  and 
victory."  While  he,  before  the  holy  confession  of  the 
blessed  Peter  the  Apostle,  was  invoking  divers  saints,  it 
was  proclaimed  thrice,  and  he  was  chosen  by  all  to  be 
Emperor  of  the  Romans.  Thereon  the  most  holy  pontiff 
anointed  Charles  with  holy  oil,  and  likewise  his  most  excel- 
lent son  to  be  king,  upon  the  very  day  of  the  birth  of  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ ;  and  when  the  mass  was  finished  then 
after  the  mass  the  most  serene  lord  Emperor  offered  gifts.'* 

In  these  three  accounts  there  is  no  serious  discrepancy 
as  to  the  facts,  although  the  Italian  priest,  as  is  natural, 
heightens  the  importance  of  the  part  played  by  the  Pope, 

«  Apud  Pertz,  M.  G.  ff.,  Script,  i.  pp.  305,  306. 
*  Liber  Pontificate,  Vita  Leonis  HI. 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  V. 


Impression 
•which  they 
convey. 


while  the  Germans  are  more  disposed  to  rationalize  the 
event,  talking  of  a  synod  of  the  clergy,  a  consultation  of 
the  people,  and  a  formal  request  to  Charles,  which  the 
silence  of  Eginhard,  as  well  as  the  other  circumstances  of 
the  case,  forbid  us  to  accept  as  literally  true.  Similarly 
the  Roman  narrative  passes  over  the  adoration  rendered 
by  the  Pope  to  the  Emperor,  upon  which  most  of  the 
Prankish  records  insist  in  a  way  which  puts  it  beyond 
doubt.  But  the  impression  which  the  three  accounts 
leave  is  essentially  the  same.  They  all  shew  how  hard 
it  is  to  give  a  technical  character  to  the  transaction  as  an 
act  either  of  conquest  or  of  election.  The  Prankish  king 
does  not  of  his  own  might  seize  the  crown,  but  rather 
receives  it  as  coming  naturally  to  him,  as  the  legitimate 
consequence  of  the  authority  he  already  enjoyed.  The 
Pope  bestows  the  crown,  not  in  virtue  of  any  right  of 
his  own  as  head  of  the  Church  :  he  is  merely  the  in- 
strument of  God's  providence,  which  has  unmistakeably 
pointed  out  Charles  as  the  proper  person  to  defend  and 
lead  the  Christian  commonwealth.  The  Roman  people 
do  not  formally  choose  and  appoint,  but  by  their  applause 
accept  the  chief  who  is  presented  to  them.  The  act  is 
conceived  of  as  directly  ordered  by  the  Divine  Providence 
which  has  brought  about  a  state  of  things  that  admits  of 
but  one  issue,  an  issue  which  king,  priest,  and  people 
have  only  to  recognize  and  obey  ;  their  personal  ambitions, 
passions,  intrigues,  sinking  and  vanishing  in  reverential 
awe  at  what  seems  the  immediate  interposition  of  Heaven. 
And  as  the  result  is  desired  by  all  parties  alike,  they  do 
not  think  of  inquiring  into  one  another's  rights,  but  take 
their  momentary  harmony  to  be  natural  and  necessary, 
never  dreaming  of  the  difficulties  and  conflicts  which  were 
to  arise  out  of  what  then  seemed  so  simple.  And  it  was 
just  because  everything  was  thus  left  undetermined,  resting 


EMPIRE   AND   POLICY   OF   CHARLES  57 

not  on  express  stipulation  but  rather  on  a  sort  of  mutual  CHAP.  v. 
understanding,  a  sympathy  of  beliefs  and  wishes  which  au- 
gured  no  evil,  that  the  event  admitted  of  being  afterwards 
represented  in  so  many  different  lights.  Four  centuries  coronation 
later,  when  Papacy  and  Empire  had  been  forced  into  the 
mortal  struggle  by  which  the  fate  of  both  was  decided, 
three  distinct  theories  regarding  the  coronation  of  Charles 
will  be  found  advocated  by  three  different  parties,  all  of 
them  plausible,  all  of  them  to  some  extent  misleading. 
The  Swabian  Emperors  held  the  crown  to  have  been  won 
by  their  great  predecessor  as  the  prize  of  conquest,  and 
drew  the  conclusion  that  the  citizens  and  bishop  of  Rome 
had  no  rights  as  against  themselves.  The  patriotic  party 
among  the  Romans,  appealing  to  the  early  history  of  the 
Empire,  declared  that  only  by  the  voice  of  their  senate 
and  people  could  an  Emperor  be  lawfully  created,  he  being 
their  chief  magistrate,  the  temporary  depositary  of  their 
authority.  The  Popes  pointed  to  the  indisputable  fact 
that  Leo  imposed  the  crown,  and  argued  that  as  God's 
earthly  vicar  it  was  then  his  right,  and  must  always  con- 
tinue to  be  their  right,  to  give  to  whomsoever  they  would 
an  office  created  to  be  the  handmaid  of  their  own.  Of 
these  three  it  was  the  last  view  that  eventually  tended  to 
prevail,  yet  to  an  impartial  eye  it  cannot  claim,  any  more 
than  do  the  two  others,  to  contain  the  whole  truth. 
Charles  did  not  conquer,  nor  the  Pope  give,  nor  the  people 
elect.  As  the  act  was  unprecedented,  so  was  it  extra- 
legal  ; g  it  was  a  revolt  of  the  ancient  Western  capital 

*  It  must  be  remembered  that  no  method  of  choosing  an  Emperor  ever 
was  prescribed  by  law  either  under  the  earlier  Emperors  at  Rome  or  the  later 
at  Constantinople.  So  far  as  the  right  of  choice  could  be  said  to  reside  in  any 
body,  it  resided  in  the  senate  or  the  army,  or  (in  a  still  more  shadowy  way) 
in  the  people,  first  of  Old  Rome,  afterwards  of  New  Rome  (Constantinople), 
but  in  practice  the  senate  counted  for  very  little  :  it  was  a  matter  facti  potius 
quam  iuris.  Hence  the  Romans  in  A.D.  800  might  claim  that  they  were 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  V. 


Was  the 
coronation  a 
surprise  f 


against  a  daughter  who  had  become  a  mistress ;  an  ex- 
ercise of  the  sacred  right  of  insurrection,  justified  by  the 
weakness  or  wickedness  of  the  Eastern  princes,  hallowed 
to  the  eyes  of  the  world  by  the  sanction  of  Christ's  repre- 
sentative, (but  founded  upon  no  law,  nor  competent  to 
create  any  for  the  future. 

It  is  an  interesting  and  somewhat  perplexing  question, 
how  far  the  coronation  scene,  an  act  as  imposing  in  its 
circumstances  as  it  was  momentous  in  its  results,  was 
prearranged  among  the  parties.  Eginhard  tells  us  that 
Charles  was  accustomed  to  declare  that  he  would  not, 
even  on  so  high  a  festival,  have  entered  the  church  had 
he  known  of  the  Pope's  intention.11  Even  if  the  monarch 
had  uttered,  the  secretary  would  hardly  have  recorded  a 
falsehood  long  after  the  motive  that  might  have  prompted 
it  had  disappeared.  Of  the  existence  of  the  motive  that 
has  been  most  commonly  assumed,  a  fear  of  the  discontent 
of  the  Franks  who  might  think  their  liberties  endangered, 
little  or  no  proof  can  be  brought  from  the  records  of  the 
time,  wherein  the  nation  is  represented  as  exulting  in  the 
new  dignity  of  their  chief  as  an  accession  of  grandeur  to 
themselves.  Nor  can  we  assume  that  Charles's  disavowal 
was  merely  meant  to  soothe  the  offended  pride  of  the  East 

revindicating  a  right  which,  originally  vested  in  their  ancestors,  had  been 
misused  at  Constantinople,  and  the  more  palpably  misused  because  no  woman 
had  ever  reigned  except  as  consort  of  an  Emperor. 

The  Franks  evidently  attached  importance  to  the  Roman  acclamations, 
but  these  would  come  from  the  party  in  Rome  which  favoured  Pope  Leo. 
and  we  must  not  suppose  any  formal  election  by  the  people. 

h  '  Imperatoris  et  Augusti  nomen  accepit,  quod  primo  in  tantum  aversatus 
est  ut  adfirmaret  se  eo  die,  quamvis  praecipua  festivitas  esset,  aecclesiam  non 
intraturum  si  pontificis  consilium  praescire  potuisset.  Invidiam  tamen  sus- 
cepti  nominis,  Romanis  imperatoribus  super  hoc  indignantibus,  magna  tulit 
patientia,  vicitque  eorum  contumaciam  magnanimitate,  qua  eis  proculdubio 
longe  praestantior  erat,  mittendo  ad  eos  crebras  legationes  et  in  epistolis 
fratres  eos  appellando.'  —  Vita  Karoli,  c.  xxxviii. 


EMPIRE   AND   POLICY  OF  CHARLES  59 

Roman  princes,  from  whom  he  had  little  to  fear,  and  who  CHAP.  v. 
were  none  the  more  likely  to  recognize  his  dignity,  if  they 
should  believe  it  to  be  not  of  his  own  seeking.  Yet  it  is 
hard  to  suppose  the  whole  affair  a  surprise  ;  for  it  was  the 
goal  towards  which  the  policy  of  the  Prankish  kings  had 
for  many  years  pointed,  and  Charles  himself,  in  sending 
before  him  to  Rome  many  of  the  spiritual  and  temporal 
magnates  of  his  realm,  in  summoning  thither  his  son  Pipin 
from  a  war  against  the  Lombards  of  Benevento,  had  shewn 
that  he  expected  some  more  than  ordinary  result  from  this 
journey  to  the  imperial  city.  Alcuin  moreover,  Alcuin  of 
York,  the  trusted  adviser  of  Charles  in  matters  religious 
and  literary,  appears  from  one  of  his  extant  letters  to  have 
sent  as  a  Christmas  gift  to  his  royal  pupil  a  carefully  cor- 
rected and  superbly  adorned  copy  of  the  Scriptures,  with 
the  words  'ad  splendorem  imperialis  potentiae.'  This  has 
commonly  been  taken  for  conclusive  evidence  that  the 
plan  had  been  settled  beforehand,  and  such  it  would  be 
were  there  not  some  reasons  for  giving  the  letter  an  earlier 
date,  and  looking  upon  the  word  '  imperialis '  as  a  mere 
magniloquent  flourish.1  More  weight  is  therefore  to  be 
laid  upon  the  arguments  supplied  by  the  nature  of  the 
case  itself.  The  Pope,  whatever  his  confidence  in  the 
sympathy  of  the  people,  would  never  have  ventured  on 
so  momentous  a  step  until  previous  conferences  had  as- 
sured him  of  the  feelings  of  the  king,  nor  could  an  act  for 
which  the  assembly  were  evidently  prepared  have  been 
kept  a  secret.  Nevertheless,  the  declaration  of  Charles 
himself  can  neither  be  evaded  nor  set  down  to  mere  dis- 
simulation. It  is  more  fair  to  him,  and  on  the  whole  more 
reasonable,  to  suppose  that  Leo,  having  satisfied  himself  of 
the  wishes  of  the  Roman  clergy  and  people  as  well  as  of 

1  Lorentz,  Leben  Ahuins.     And  cf.  Dollinger,  Das  Kaiscrthum  Karls  dcs 
Grosscn  und  seiner  Nachfolger. 


60          THE  HOLY  ROMAN  EMPIRE 

CHAP.  v.  the  Prankish  magnates,  resolved  to  seize  an  occasion  and 
place  so  eminently  favourable  to  his  long-cherished  plan, 
while  the  king,  carried  away  by  the  enthusiasm  of  the 
moment  and  seeing  in  the  pontiff  the  prophet  and  instru- 
ment of  the  divine  will,  accepted  a  dignity  which  he  might 
have  wished  to  receive  at  some  later  time  or  in  some  other 
way.j  If,  therefore,  any  positive  conclusion  be  adopted, 
it  would  seem  to  be  that  Charles,  who  may  probably  have 
given  a  more  or  less  vague  consent  to  the  project,  was 
surprised  and  disconcerted  by  a  sudden  fulfilment  which 
interrupted  his  own  carefully  studied  designs.  And  al- 
though a  deed  which  changed  the  history  of  the  world 
was  in  any  case  no  accident,  it  may  well  have  worn  to  the 
Prankish  and  Roman  spectators  the  air  of  a  surprise.  For 
there  were  no  preparations  apparent  in  the  church ;  the 
king  was  not,  like  his  Teutonic  successors  in  the  aftertime, 
led  in  procession  to  the  pontifical  throne  :  suddenly,  at  the 
very  moment  when  he  rose  from  the  sacred  hollow  where 
he  had  knelt  among  the  ever-burning  lamps  before  the 
holiest  of  Christian  relics  —  the  body  of  the  prince  of  the 
Apostles  —  the  hands  of  that  Apostle's  representative 
placed  upon  his  head  the  crown  of  glory  and  poured  upon 
him  the  oil  of  sanctification.  There  was  something  in  this 
to  thrill  the  beholders  with  the  awe  of  a  Divine  presence, 
and  make  them  hail  him  whom  that  presence  seemed  al- 
most visibly  to  consecrate,  the  'pious  and  peace-giving 
Emperor,  crowned  of  God.' 

The  reluctance  of  Charles  to  assume  the  imperial  title 
has  been  variously  explained.  Some  high  authorities" 

i  A  recent  writer  (Martens,  Beleuchtung  der  ntucsten  Controverscn  iiber 
die  romische  Frage}  thinks  that  Charles  and  Leo  had  arranged  that  the  coro- 
nation should  take  place,  but  that  the  Emperor  meant  to  crown  himself,  and 
then  let  the  Pope  anoint  him. 

k  Dahn,  Urgeschichte  der  romanischen  und  teutonischen  Volker,  Hodgkin, 
Italy  and  her  Invaders,  vol.  viii.  p.  202  sqq.  Dr.  Hodgkin  suggests  another 


6i 


think  that  his  sagacity  stretched  far  enough  into  the  fu-  CHAP.  v. 
ture  to  discern  the  danger  of  the  precedent  set  by  the  Theories 
Pope's  action,  and  the  claims  which  might  thereafter  be  ^f^J^, 
based  upon  it.  True  it  is  that  when  the  time  came  for  of  Charles. 
his  son  to  be  crowned  as  co-emperor,  Charles  himself  set 
the  crown  on  the  head  of  Lewis.  Yet  Pope  Leo  had  been 
so  humble  towards  Charles,  so  far  from  advancing  those 
pretensions  to  supremacy  which,  foreshadowed  by  Pope 
Nicholas  I  sixty  years  later,  appeared  full-blown  under 
Gregory  VII,  that  we  may  doubt  whether  the  Emperor 
could  have  perceived  all  that  lay  involved  in  the  imposition 
of  the  crown  by  papal  hands.  Eginhard1  himself  seems  to 
hint  that  Charles  feared  the  jealous  hostility  of  the  East- 
ern Court,  which  could  not  only  deny  his  claim  to  the  title, 
but  might  disturb  by  intrigues  his  dominions  in  Italy. 
Accepting  this  statement,  the  problem  remains,  how  is 
this  reluctance  to  be  reconciled  with  those  acts  of  his 
which  clearly  shew  him  aiming  at  the  Roman  crown  ?  A 
probable  solution  is  suggested  by  a  distinguished  his- 
torian,"1 who  argues  from  a  minute  examination  of  the 
previous  policy  of  Charles,  that  while  it  was  the  great 
object  of  his  reign  to  obtain  the  crown  of  the  world,  he 
foresaw  at  the  same  time  the  opposition  of  the  East  Roman 
Court,  and  the  want  of  legality  from  which  his  title  would 
in  consequence  suffer.  He  was  therefore  bent  on  getting 
from  the  Eastern  rulers,  if  possible,  a  transference  of  their 
crown  ;  if  not,  at  least  a  recognition  of  his  own  :  and  he 
appears  to  have  hoped  to  win  this  by  the  negotiations 
which  had  been  for  some  time  kept  on  foot  with  the  Em- 
press Irene.  Just  at  this  moment  came  the  coronation  by 

explanation  also,  the  difficulty  of  securing  the  city  of  Rome  for  Charles's  eld- 
est son,  who  was  to  be  his  chief  heir,  inasmuch  as  Italy  was  to  be  part  of  the 
dominions  of  his  younger  son. 

1  See  the  passage  quoted  in  note  h,  p.  58.  m  Dollinger,  ut  supra. 


62 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  V. 


Defect  in  the 
title  oftke 
Teutonic 
Emperors. 


Pope  Leo,  interrupting  these  deep-laid  schemes,  irritating 
Constantinople,  and  forcing  Charles  into  the  position  of  a 
rival  who  could  not  with  dignity  adopt  a  soothing  or  sub- 
missive tone.  Nevertheless,  he  seems  not  even  then  to 
have  abandoned  the  hope  of  obtaining  a  peaceful  recogni- 
tion. He  was  not,  if  we  may  credit  Theophanes,n  deterred 
by  Irene's  crimes  from  seeking  her  hand  in  marriage.  And 
when  the  project  of  thus  uniting  the  East  and  West  in  a 
single  Empire,  baffled  for  a  time  by  the  opposition  of  her 
minister  Aetius,  was  rendered  impossible  by  her  subse- 
quent dethronement  and  exile,  he  did  not  abandon  the 
policy  of  conciliation  until  a  surly  acquiescence  in,  rather 
than  admission  of,  his  dignity  had  been  won  from  the 
Eastern  Emperor  Nicephorus  and  confirmed  by  his  suc- 
cessor Michael.0 

Whether,  supposing  Leo  to  have  been  less  precipitate, 
a  cession  of  the  crown,  or  an  acknowledgement  of  the  right 
of  the  Romans  to  confer  it,  could  ever  have  been  obtained 
by  Charles  is  more  than  doubtful.  But  it  is  clear  that  he 
judged  rightly  in  rating  its  importance  high,  for  the  want 
of  it  was  the  great  blemish  in  his  own  and  his  successors' 
dignity.  To  shew  how  this  was  so,  reference  must  be 
made  to  the  events  of  A.D.  476.  Both  the  extinction  of 
the  Western  Empire  in  that  year  and  its  revival  in  A.D.  800 
have  been  generally  misunderstood  in  modern  times,  and 


"  ITapa  Kapoi/XXou  diroKpiaidpioi  Kal  rov  irdira  Atovros  irpbs  r$)v 
a'tTovfj.fvoi  %tvx.0fiva.i  a&rijv  T$  Kapot'/XXy  wpbs  yd/j.ov  Kal  tv&ffai  rd  'E<pa  /cat 
rA  'Effirtpia.  —  Theoph.,  Chron.  in  Corp.  Scr.  Hist.  Byzant.  vol.  xliii.  p.  737. 

0  Their  ambassadors  at  last  saluted  him  by  the  desired  title  :  '  Laudes  ei 
dixerunt  imperatorem  eum  et  basileum  appellantes.'  Eginh.,  Ann.,  ad  ann. 
812.  Charles  in  a  letter  sent  to  Michael  had  addressed  the  latter  as  Emperor, 
and  spoken  of  the  peace  established  'inter  Orientale  et  Occidentale  im- 
perium.'  There  was  thus  a  sort  of  reciprocal  recognition,  but  (as  will  be 
further  explained  in  chapter  XVII)  the  two  Empires  did  not  as  a  rule  admit 
one  another's  claims. 


EMPIRE   AND  POLICY  OF  CHARLES  63 

although  the  mistake  is  not,  in  a  certain  sense,  of  practical  CHAP.  v. 
importance,  yet  it  tends  to  confuse  history  and  to  blind  us 
to  the  ideas  of  the  people  who  acted  on  both  occasions. 
When  Odoacer  compelled  the  abdication  of  Romulus 
Augustulus,  he  did  not  abolish  the  Western  Empire  as  a 
separate  power,  but  caused  it  to  be  reunited  with  or  sink 
into  the  Eastern,  so  that  from  that  time  there  was,  as  there 
had  been  before  Diocletian,  a  single  undivided  Roman 
Empire.  In  A.D.  800  the  very  memory  of  the  separate 
Western  Empire,  as  it  had  stood  from  the  death  of  Theo- 
dosius  till  Odoacer,  had,  so  far  as  appears,  been  long  since 
lost,  and  neither  Leo  nor  Charles  nor  any  one  among  their 
advisers  dreamt  of  reviving  it.  They  too,  like  their  prede- 
cessors, held  the  Roman  Empire  to  be  one  and  indivisible, 
and  proposed  by  the  coronation  of  the  Prankish  king  not 
to  proclaim  a  severance  of  the  East  and  West,  but  to  re- 
verse the  act  of  Constantine,  and  make  Old  Rome  again 
the  civil  as  well  as  the  ecclesiastical  capital  of  the  Empire 
that  bore  her  name.  Their  deed  was  in  its  essence  illegal, 
but  they  sought  to  give  it  every  semblance  of  legality : 
they  professed  and  partly  believed  that  they  were  not 
revolting  against  a  reigning  sovereign,  but  legitimately 
filling  up  the  place  of  the  deposed  Constantine  the  Sixth, 
the  people  of  the  imperial  city  exercising  their  ancient 
right  of  choice,  their  bishop  his  right  of  consecration. 

Their  purpose  was  but  half  accomplished.  They  could 
create,  but  they  could  not  destroy.  They  set  up  an  Em- 
peror of  their  own,  whose  representatives  thenceforward 
reigned  in  the  West,  but  Constantinople,  which  they  did 
not  attempt  to  reduce  to  obedience,  retained  her  sovereigns 
as  of  yore ;  and  Christendom  saw  henceforth  two  imperial 
lines,  not  as  in  the  time  before  A.D.  476,  the  conjoint  heads 
of  a  single  realm,  but  always  rivals  and  usually  enemies, 
each  denouncing  the  other  as  a  pretender,  each  professing 


64  THE   HOLY  ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  v.  to  be  the  only  true  and  lawful  head  of  the  Christian  Church 
and  people.  Although  therefore  we  must  in  practice  speak 
during  the  next  seven  centuries  (down  till  A.D.  1453,  when 
Constantinople  fell  before  the  Turkish  Sultan  Mohammed 
II)  of  an  Eastern  and  a  Western  Empire,  the  phrase  is  in 
strictness  incorrect,  and  was  one  which  either  court  ought 
to  have  repudiated.  The  Byzantines  almost  always  did 
repudiate  it;p  the  Latins  usually;  although,  yielding  to 
facts,  they  sometimes  condescended  to  employ  it  them- 
selves. But  their  theory  was  always  the  same.  Charles 
was  held  to  be  the  legitimate  successor,  not  of  Romulus 
Augustulus,  but  of  Constantine  VI,  of  his  father  Leo  IV, 
of  Heraclius,  Justinian,  Arcadius,  and  the  whole  Eastern 
line ;  and  hence  it  is  that  in  the  annals  of  the  time  and  of 
many  succeeding  centuries,  the  name  of  Constantine  VI, 
the  sixty-seventh  in  order  from  Augustus,  is  followed  with- 
out a  break  by  that  of  Charles,  the  sixty-eighth. 
Government  The  maintenance  of  an  imperial  line  among  the  Easterns 
of  Charles  as  was  a  continuing  protest  against  the  validity  of  Charles's 
title.  But  from  their  enmity  he  had  little  to  fear,  and  in 
the  eyes  of  the  world  he  seemed  to  step  into  their  place, 
adding  the  traditional  dignity  which  had  been  theirs  to  the 
power  that  he  already  enjoyed.  North  Italy  and  Rome 
ceased  for  ever  to  own  the  supremacy  of  Constantinople ; 
and  while  the  Eastern  princes  paid  a  shameful  tribute  to 
the  Musulman,  the  Prankish  Emperor — as  the  recognized 
head  of  Christendom  —  received  from  the  Patriarch  of 
Jerusalem  the  keys  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre  and  the  banner 
of  Calvary ;  the  gift  of  the  Sepulchre  itself,  says  Eginhard, 
from  'Aaron  king  of  the  Persians.' i  Out  of  this  peaceful 

P  Although  they  occasionally  conceded  the  title  of  Emperor  to  the  Teu- 
tonic sovereign :  as  in  the  instances  cited  in  note  °,  p.  62,  and  see  post, 
ch.  XVII. 

'  Harun  er  Rashid;   Eginh.,  Vita  Karoli,  cap.  16. 


EMPIRE   AND   POLICY   OF  CHARLES  65 

intercourse  with  the  famous  Khalif  the  romancers  created  CHAP.  v. 
a  crusade.     Within  his  own  dominions  the  sway  of  Charles 

assumed  a  more   sacred  character.     Already  had  his  un-  His  authority 

wearied  and  comprehensive  activity  made  him  throughout  **  ?*?*?   . 

1  *  ecclesiastical. 

his  reign  an  ecclesiastical  no  less  than  a  civil  ruler,  sum- 
moning and  sitting  in  councils,  examining  and  appointing 
bishops,  settling  by  capitularies  the  smallest  points  of 
church  discipline  and  polity.  A  synod  held  at  Frankfort  in 
A.D.  794  condemned  the  decrees  of  the  second  Council  of 
Nicaea,  which  had  been  approved  by  Pope  Hadrian,  cen- 
sured severely  the  conduct  of  the  Eastern  Emperors  in 
suggesting  them,  and  without  excluding  images  from 
churches,  altogether  forbade  them  to  be  worshipped  or 
even  venerated.  Not  only  did  Charles  preside  in  and 
direct  the  deliberations  of  this  synod,  although  legates  from 
the  Pope  were  present  —  he  also  caused  a  treatise  to  be 
drawn  up  stating  and  urging  its  conclusions ;  he  pressed 
Hadrian  to  declare  Constantine  VI  a  heretic  for  denounc- 
ing doctrines  to  which  Hadrian  had  himself  consented. 
There  are  letters  of  his  extant  in  which  he  lectures  Pope 
Leo  in  a  tone  of  easy  superiority,  admonishes  him  to  obey 
the  holy  canons,  and  bids  him  pray  earnestly  for  the  suc- 
cess of  the  efforts  which  it  is  the  monarch's  duty  to  make 
for  the  subjugation  of  pagans  and  the  establishment  of 
sound  doctrine  throughout  the  Church.  Nay,  subsequent 
Popes  themselves  admitted  and  applauded  the  despotic 
superintendence  of  matters  spiritual  which  he  was  wont  to 
exercise,  and  which  led  some  one  to  give  him  playfully  a 
title  that  had  once  been  applied  to  the  Pope  himself, 
'  Episcopus  episcoporum.' 

Acting  and  speaking  thus  when  merely  king,  it  may  be    The  imperial 
thought  that  Charles  needed  no  further  title  to  justify  his  °fficfinits 

ecclesiastical 

power.     The  inference  is  in  truth  rather  the  converse  of  relations. 
this.     Upon  what  he  had  done  already  the  imperial  title 


66 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  V. 


Capitulary 
of  A.D.  802. 


would  naturally  follow :  the  attitude  of  protection  and  con- 
trol which  he  held  towards  the  Church  and  the  Holy  See 
belonged,  according  to  the  ideas  of  the  time,  properly  and 
only  to  an  Emperor.  His  coronation  was,  therefore,  the 
fitting  completion  and  legitimation  of  his  authority,  sancti- 
fying rather  than  increasing  it.  We  have,  however,  one 
remarkable  witness  to  the  importance  that  was  attached 
to  the  imperial  name,  and  the  enhancement  which  he 
conceived  his  office  to  have  received  from  it.  In  a  great 
assembly  held  at  Aachen,  A.D.  802,  the  lately-crowned 
Emperor  revised  the  laws  of  all  the  races  that  obeyed 
him,  endeavouring  to  harmonize  and  correct  them,  and 
issued  a  capitulary  singular  in  subject  and  tone.1  All 
persons  within  his  dominions,  as  well  ecclesiastical  as  civil, 
who  have  already  sworn  allegiance  to  him  as  king,  are 
thereby  commanded  to  swear  to  him  afresh  as  Caesar ; 
and  all  who  have  never  yet  sworn,  down  to  the  age  of 
twelve,  shall  now  take  the  same  oath.  '  At  the  same  time 
it  shall  be  publicly  explained  to  all  what  is  the  force  and 
meaning  of  this  oath,  and  how  much  more  it  includes 
than  a  mere  promise  of  fidelity  to  the  monarch's  person. 
Firstly,  it  binds  those  who  swear  it  to  live,  each  and  every 
one  of  them,  according  to  his  strength  and  knowledge,  in 
the  holy  service  of  God ;  since  the  lord  Emperor  cannot 
extend  over  all  his  care  and  discipline.  Secondly,  it  binds 
them  neither  by  force  nor  fraud  to  seize  or  molest  any 
of  the  goods  or  servants  of  his  crown.  Thirdly,  to  do 
no  violence  nor  treason  towards  the  holy  Church,  or  to 
widows,  or  orphans,  or  strangers,  seeing  that  the  lord 
Emperor  has  been  appointed,  after  the  Lord  and  His 
saints,  the  protector  and  defender  of  all  such.'  Then  in 
similar  fashion  purity  of  life  is  prescribed  to  the  monks  ; 


r  Pertz,  M.  G.  H.  iii.  (Legg.  i)  p.  91. 


EMPIRE   AND  POLICY   OF   CHARLES  6/ 

homicide,  the  neglect  of  hospitality,  and  other  offences  CHAP.  v. 
are  denounced,  the  notions  of  sin  and  crime  being  inter- 
mingled and  almost  identified  in  a  way  to  which  no 
parallel  can  be  found,  unless  it  be  in  the  Mosaic  code. 
There  God,  the  invisible  object  of  worship,  is  also,  by 
necessary  consequence,  the  judge  and  ruler  of  Israel; 
here  the  whole  cycle  of  social  and  moral  duty  is  deduced 
from  the  obligation  of  obedience  to  the  visible  autocratic 
head  of  the  Christian  state. 

In  most  of  Charles's  words  and  deeds,  nor  less  distinctly 
in  the  writings  of  his  adviser  Alcuin,  may  be  discerned 
the  working  of  the  same  theocratic  ideas.  Among  his 
intimate  friends  he  chose  to  be  called  by  the  name  of 
David,  exercising  in  reality  all  the  powers  of  the  Jewish 
king ;  presiding  over  this  kingdom  of  God  upon  earth 
rather  as  a  second  Constantine  or  Theodosius  than  in  the 
spirit  and  traditions  of  the  earlier  successors  of  Augustus. 
Among  his  measures  there  are  two  which  in  particular 
recall  the  first  Christian  Emperor.  As  Constantine  founds 
so  Charles  erects  on  a  firmer  basis  the  connection  of  Church 
and  State.  Bishops  and  abbots  are  as  essential  a  part  of 
rising  feudalism  as  counts  and  dukes.  Their  benefices  are 
held  under  the  same  conditions  of  fealty  and  the  service 
in  war  of  their  vassal  tenants,  not  of  the  spiritual  person 
himself :  they  have  similar  rights  of  jurisdiction,  and  are 
subject  alike  to  the  imperial  missi.  The  monarch  often 
tries  to  restrict  the  clergy,  as  persons,  to  spiritual  duties ; 
quells  the  insubordination  of  the  monasteries  ;  endeavours 
to  bring  the  seculars  into  a  quasi-monastic  life  by  institut- 
ing and  regulating  chapters.  But  after  granting  wealth 
and  power,  the  attempt  was  vain ;  his  strong  hand  with- 
drawn, they  laughed  at  control.  Again,  it  was  by  him 
first  that  the  payment  of  tithes,  for  which  the  priesthood 
had  long  been  pleading,  was  made  compulsory  in  Western 


68  THE    HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  v.        Europe,    and    the   support    of    the    ministers   of   religion 

recognized  as  a  legally  binding  obligation. 

influence  of  In  civil  affairs  al so  Charles  acquired,  with  the  imperial 
^itiTin*™1  tit:^e'  a  new  Position-  Later  jurists  labour  to  distinguish 
Germany  and  his  power  as  Roman  Emperor  from  that  which  he  held 
Gaul.  already  as  king  of  the  Franks  and  their  subject  allies  : 

they  insist  that  his  coronation  gave  him  the  capital  only, 
that  it  is  absurd  to  talk  of  a  Roman  Empire  in  regions 
whither  the  eagles  had  never  flown.8  In  such  expressions 
there  seems  to  lurk  either  confusion  or  misconception. 
It  was  not  the  actual  government  of  the  city  that  Charles 
obtained  in  A.D.  800 ;  that  his  father  had  already  held  as 
Patrician,  and  he  had  himself  exerted  the  rights  which  the 
title  gave.  It  was  far  more  than  the  titular  sovereignty  of 
Rome  which  had  hitherto  been  supposed  to  be  vested  in 
the  Emperor  at  Constantinople.  It  was  nothing  less  than 
the  headship  of  the  world,  believed  to  appertain  of  right 
to  the  lawful  Roman  Emperor,  whether  he  reigned  on  the 
Bosphorus,  the  Tiber,  or  the  Rhine.  As  that  headship, 
although  never  denied,  had  been  in  abeyance  in  the  West 
for  several  centuries,  its  bestowal  on  the  king  of  so  vast 
a  realm  was  a  change  of  the  first  moment,  for  it  made  the 
coronation  not  merely  a  transference  of  the  seat  of  Empire, 
but  a  renewal  of  the  Empire  itself,  a  bringing  back  of  it 
from  faith  to  sight,  from  the  world  of  belief  and  theory  to 
the  world  of  fact  and  reality.  And  since  the  powers  it 
gave  were  autocratic  and  unlimited,  it  must  swallow  up 
all  minor  claims  and  dignities  :  the  rights  of  Charles  the 
Frankish  king  were  merged  in  those  of  Charles  the  suc- 
cessor of  Augustus,  the  lord  of  the  world.  That  his 
imperial  authority  was  theoretically  irrespective  of  place 
is  clear  from  his  own  words  and  acts,  and  from  all  the 

•  Putter,  Historical  Development  of  the  German  Constitution;  so  too  Con- 
ring,  and  esp.  David  Blondel,  Adv.  Chiffletium. 


EMPIRE   AND   POLICY   OF   CHARLES  69 

monuments  of  that  time.  He  would  not,  indeed,  have  CHAP.  v. 
dreamed  of  treating  the  high-spirited  Franks  as  Justinian 
had  treated  his  half-Oriental  subjects,  nor  would  the 
warriors  who  followed  his  standard  have  brooked  such  an 
attempt.  Yet  even  to  German  eyes  his  position  must 
have  been  altered  by  the  halo  of  vague  splendour  which 
now  surrounded  him  ;  for  all,  even  the  Saxon  and  the 
Slav,  had  heard  of  Rome's  glories,  and  revered  the 
name  of  Caesar.  And  in  his  effort  to  weld  discordant  Action  of 
elements  into  one  body,  to  introduce  regular  gradations 
of  authority,  to  control  the  Teutonic  tendency  to  locali- 
zation by  his  missi  —  officials  commissioned  to  traverse 
each  some  part  of  his  dominions,  reporting  on  and  redress- 
ing the  evils  they  found  —  as  well  as  by  his  own  oft- 
repeated  personal  progresses,  Charles  was  guided  by  the 
traditions  of  the  old  Empire.  His  sway  is  the  revival  of 
order  and  culture,  seeking  to  fuse  the  West  into  a  com- 
pact whole,  whose  parts  are  never  thenceforward  to  lose 
the  marks  of  their  connection  and  their  half-Roman 
character,  gathering  up  all  that  is  left  in  Europe  of  intel- 
lect knowledge  and  skill,  hurling  it  with  the  new  force  of 
Christianity  on  the  infidel  of  the  South  and  the  masses 
of  untamed  barbarism  to  the  North  and  East.  Ruling 
the  world  by  the  gift  of  God,  and  by  the  transmitted  rights 
of  the  Romans  and  their  Caesar  whom  God  had  chosen 
to  conquer  it,  he  renews  the  original  aggressive  movement 
of  the  Empire.  The  civilized  world  has  subdued  her 
invader,1  and  now  arms  him  against  savagery  and 
heathendom.  Hence  the  wars,  not  more  of  the  sword 
than  of  the  cross,  against  Saxons,  Avars,  Slavs,  Danes, 
Spanish  Arabs,  where  monasteries  are  fortresses  and 
baptism  the  badge  of  submission.  The  overthrow 

1 '  Graecia  capta  ferum  victorem  cepit,'  is  repeated  in  this  conquest  of  the 
Teuton  by  Roman  civilization. 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  V. 


His  position 
as  Prankish 
king. 


of  the  Irminsul,u  in  the  first  Saxon  campaign,  sums 
up  the  changes  of  seven  centuries.  The  Romanized 
Teuton  destroys  the  monument  of  his  country's  freedom, 
for  it  is  also  the  emblem  of  paganism  and  barbarism. 
The  work  of  the  Cheruscan  Arminius  is  undone  by  his 
successor. 

This,  however,  is  not  the  only  side  from  which  Charles's 
policy  and  character  may  be  regarded.  If  the  unity  of  the 
Church  and  the  shadow  of  imperial  prerogative  was  one 
pillar  of  his  power,  the  other  was  the  Prankish  nation. 
The  empire  was  still  military,  though  in  a  sense  strangely 
different  from  that  of  Julius  or  Severus.  The  warlike 
Franks  had  permeated  Western  Europe;  their  primacy 
was  admitted  by  the  kindred  tribes  of  Bavarians,  Lorn 
bards,  Thuringians,  Alemannians,  and  Burgundians;  the 
Slavonic  peoples  on  the  borders  trembled  and  paid  trib- 
ute; the  Spanish  Alfonso  of  Asturias  found  in  the 
Emperor  a  protector  against  the  infidel  foe.  His  in- 
fluence, if  not  his  exerted  power,  crossed  the  ocean  :  the 
kings  of  the  Scots  sent  gifts  and  called  him  lord:1  the 
restoration  of  Eardulf  to  Northumbria,  still  more  of 
Egbert  to  Wessex,  might  furnish  a  better  ground  for  the 
claim  of  suzerainty  than  many  to  which  his  successors  had 
afterwards  recourse. 

As  it  was  by  Frankish  arms  that  this  predominance 
in  Europe  which  the  imperial  title  adorned  and  legalized 
had  been  won,  so  was  the  government  of  Charles  Roman 
in  name  rather  than  in  fact.  It  was  not  by  restoring  the 
effete  mechanism  of  the  old  Empire,  but  by  his  own 
vigorous  personal  action  and  that  of  his  great  officers, 
that  he  strove  to  administer  and  reform.  With  every 
effort  for  a  strong  central  government,  there  is  no 

«  See  Note  VI  at  end. 

1  Probably  the  Scots  of  Ireland.  —  Eginhard,  Vita  Karoli,  cap.  16. 


25  2O 


IS  1O 


EUROPE  A.D.  814 

SHOWING 

,  THE  ROMAN  EMPIRE  IN  THE  WEST 

AT  THE  DEATH   OF  CHARLEMAGNE. 

The  Roman  Empire  r*"l 

Territories  more  or  less  dependent 
on  tie  Empire 

Mohammedan  Territories  KHI 

Independent  States  coloured  in,  ouxLtTie-  I       £- 


English,  Mil&s 


It,,  Umbongk  Gcof;r^iT<ic«3  lutitme 


EMPIRE  AND  POLICY  OF  CHARLES  71 

despotism :    each   nation    retains   its   laws,  its   hereditary  CHAP.  v. 
chiefs,    its    free    popular    assemblies.      The    conditions 
granted  to  the  Saxons  after  long  and  cruel  warfare,  con- 
ditions so  favourable  that  in  the  next  century  their  dukes 
hold  the  foremost  place  in  Germany,  shew  how  little  he 
sought    to   make   the   Franks   a  dominant    caste.      One   General  r*. 
may   think   of   him   as   a   second   Theodorich,    trying   to  sults°fhts 

...  ,  Empire. 

maintain  the  traditions  of  Rome  and  to  breathe  a  new 
spirit  into  the  ancient  forms.  The  conception  was  mag- 
nificent ;  and  it  fitted  the  time  better  than  it  had  done 
in  the  hands  of  Theodorich,  not  only  because  Charles  was 
himself  orthodox  and  pious,  but  also  because  the  name  and 
dominion  of  Rome  were  now  more  closely  associated  with 
Christianity  than  they  had  been  in  days  when  the  re- 
collection of  heathen  Emperors  was  still  fresh  in  the 
memory  of  men.  But  two  obstacles  forbade  success.  The 
one  was  the  ecclesiastical,  especially  the  papal  power, 
apparently  subject  to  the  temporal,  but  with  a  strong  and 
undefined  prerogative  which  only  waited  the  occasion  to 
trample  on  what  it  had  helped  to  raise.  The  Pope  might 
take  away  the  crown  he  had  bestowed,  and  turn  against 
the  Emperor  the  Church  which  now  obeyed  him.  The 
other  was  to  be  found  in  the  discordance  of  the  compo- 
nent parts  of  the  Empire.  The  nations  were  not  ripe  for 
settled  life  or  extensive  schemes  of  polity  ;  the  differences 
of  race,  language,  manners,  over  vast  and  thinly-peopled 
lands  baffled  every  attempt  to  maintain  their  cohesion : 
and  when  once  the  spell  of  the  great  mind  was  with- 
drawn, the  mutually  repellent  forces  began  to  work,  and 
the  mass  dissolved  into  that  chaos  out  of  which  it  had 
been  formed.  Nevertheless,  the  parts  separated  not  as 
they  met,  but  having  all  of  them  undergone  influences 
which  continued  to  act  when  political  connection  had 
ceased.  For  the  work  of  Charles  —  a  genius  pre-eminently 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


^HAP.  v.  creative  —  was  not  lost  in  the  anarchy  that  followed  : 
rather  are  we  to  regard  his  reign  as  the  beginning  of  a 
new  era,  or  as  laying  the  foundations  whereon  men  con- 
tinued for  many  generations  to  build. 

Personal  It  is  no  longer  necessary  to  shew  how  little  the  modern 

habits  and      French,   children  of  the  Latinized  Celt,  have  to  do  with 

sympathies.  .  _ 

the  Teutonic  Charles.  At  Rome  he  might  assume  the 
chlamys  and  the  sandals,  but  at  the  head  of  his  Prankish 
host  he  strictly  adhered  to  the  customs  of  his  country, 
and  was  beloved  by  his  people  as  the  very  ideal  of  their 
own  character  and  habits.  Of  strength  and  stature  almost 
superhuman,  in  swimming  and  hunting  unsurpassed,  stead- 
fast and  terrible  in  fight,  to  his  friends  gentle  and  conde- 
scending, he  was  a  Roman,  much  less  a  Gaul,y  in  nothing 
but  his  culture  and  his  schemes  of  government,  otherwise 
a  German.  The  centre  of  his  realm  was  the  Rhine ;  his 
favourite  residences  Aachen z  and  Engilenheim  ; a  his  sym- 
pathies—  as  they  are  shewn  in  the  gathering  of  the  old 
hero-lays,b  the  composition  of  a  German  grammar,  the 
ordinance  against  confining  prayer  to  the  three  languages, 
Hebrew,  Greek,  and  Latin,  —  were  all  for  the  race  from 
which  he  sprang,  and  whose  advance,  represented  by  the 
victory  of  Austrasia,  the  true  Prankish  fatherland  along  the 

y  He  could,  however,  speak  Latin  as  easily  as  German,  but  understood 
Greek  better  than  he  spoke  it.  He  tried  to  learn  to  write,  but,  says  Egin- 
hard :  '  parum  successit  labor  praeposterus  et  sero  inchoatus.' 

1  Aix-la-Chapelle  (called  by  English  writers  of  the  seventeenth  century 
Aken).  It  is  commemorated  in  the  lines  (to  be  found  in  Pertz's  edition  of 
Eginhard)  beginning  — 

'  Urbs  Aquensis,  urbs  regalis, 
Sedes  regni  principalis, 
Prima  regum  curia.' 

*  Engilenheim,  or  Ingelheim,  lies  near  the  left  shore  of  the  Rhine  be- 
tween Mentz  and  Bingen. 

b  '  Barbara  et  antiquissima  carmina  quibus  veterum  regum  actus  et  bella 
canebantur  scripsit  memoriaeque  mandavit.'  —  Vita  A'aroli,  cap.  29. 


EMPIRE   AND  POLICY  OF  CHARLES  73 

lower  Rhine,  over  Neustria  (central  Gaul)  and  Aquitaine,  CHAP.  v. 
spread  a  second  Germanic  wave  over  the  conquered  countries. 

There  were  in  his  Empire,  as  in  his  own  mind,  two  His  Empire 
elements,  those  two  from  the  union  and  mutual  action  andcharacta 
and  reaction  of  which  modern  civilization  has  arisen.  * 
These  vast  domains,  reaching  from  the  Ebro  to  the  moun- 
tains of  Hungary,  from  the  Eyder  to  the  Liris,  were  the 
conquests  of  the  Prankish  sword,  and,  although  the  army 
was  drawn  from  all  the  more  warlike  races,  the  imperial 
governors  and  officers  were  mostly  of  Prankish  blood. 
But  the  conception  of  the  Empire,  that  which  made  it  a 
State  and  not  a  mere  mass  of  subject  tribes  like  those 
great  Eastern  dominions  which  rise  and  perish  in  a  life- 
time, the  realms  of  Sesostris,  or  Attila,  or  Timur,  was 
inherited  from  an  older  and  a  grander  polity,  and  had  in 
it  an  element  which  was  Roman  rather  than  Teutonic  — 
Roman  in  its  striving  after  the  uniformity  and  precision 
of  a  well-ordered  administration,  which  should  subject  the 
individual  to  the  system  and  realize  perfection  through  the 
rule  of  law.c  And  the  bond,  too,  by  which  the  Empire 
was  chiefly  held  together  was  Roman  in  its  origin,  although 
Roman  in  a  sense  which  would  have  surprised  Trajan  or 
Severus,  could  it  have  been  foretold  them.  The  ecclesi- 
astical body  was  already  organized  and  beginning  to  be 
centralized,  and  it  was  in  his  control  of  the  ecclesiastical 
body  that  the  secret  of  Charles's  power  lay.  Every  Chris- 
tian—  Frank,  Gaul,  or  Italian  —  owed  loyalty  to  the  head 
and  defender  of  his  religion  :  the  unity  of  the  Empire  was 
a  reflection  of  the  unity  of  the  Church. 

c  These  things  were  not  in  fact  done,  but  the  idea  of  doing  them  was  in- 
volved in  the  imperial  tradition.  So  he  reduced  to  writing  the  laws  of  the 
various  tribes  subject  to  him  (probably  the  Germanic  tribes),  'Omnium 
nationum  quae  sub  eius  dominatu  erant  iura  quae  scripta  non  erant  describere 
et  literis  mandari  fecit.'  —  Vita  Karoli,  cap.  29. 


74  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  v.  Into  a  general  view  of   the  government  and  policy  of 

Charles  it  is  not  possible  here  to  enter.  Yet  his  legisla- 
tion, his  assemblies,  his  administrative  schemes,  his  mag- 
nificent works,  recalling  the  projects  of  Alexander  and 
Caesar,  the  zeal  for  education  and  literature,  which  he 
shewed  in  the  collection  of  manuscripts,  the  founding  of 
schools,  the  gathering  of  eminent  men  from  all  quarters 
around  him,  cannot  be  appreciated  apart  from  his  position 
as  restorer  of  the  Roman  Empire.  Like  most  of  those 
who  have  led  the  world,  Charles  was  many  great  things  in 
one,  and  was  so  great  just  because  the  workings  of  his 
genius  were  so  harmonious.  He  was  more  than  a  barba- 
rian warrior,  more  than  an  astute  negotiator ;  there  is  none 
of  his  qualities  which  would  not  be  forced  out  of  its  place 
were  we  to  characterize  him  chiefly  by  it.  Comparisons 
between  famous  men  of  different  ages  are  generally  as 
unprofitable  as  they  are  easy :  the  circumstances  among 
which  Charles  lived  do  not  permit  us  to  institute  a  minute 
parallel  between  his  greatness  and  that  of  those  two  to 
whom  it  was  once  the  fashion  to  compare  him,  nor  to  say 
whether  he  was  as  profound  a  statesman  as  Julius  Caesar, 
as  skilful  a  commander  as  Napoleon.  But  scarcely  either 
to  the  Roman  or  to  the  Corsican  was  he  inferior  in  that 
quality  by  which  both  he  and  they  chiefly  impress  our  im- 
agination—  the  vivid  and  unresting  energy  which  swept 
him  over  Europe  in  campaign  after  campaign,  which 
sought  a  field  for  its  workings  in  theology  and  science,  in 
law  and  literature,  no  less  than  in  politics  and  war.  As  it 
was  this  amazing  activity  that  made  him  the  conqueror  of 
Europe,  so  was  it  by  the  variety  of  his  culture  that  he 
became  her  civilizer.  From  him,  in  whose  wide  deep 
mind  the  whole  mediaeval  theory  of  the  world  and  human 
life  mirrored  itself,  did  mediaeval  society  take  the  form 
and  impress  which  it  retained  for  centuries,  and  the 


EMPIRE   AND   POLICY   OF   CHARLES  75 

traces    whereof    are    among    us    and    upon    us    to    this  CHAP.V. 
day. 

The  great  Emperor  was  buried  at  Aachen,  in  that  basil- 
ica which  it  had  been  the  delight  of  his  later  years  to  erect 
and  adorn  with  the  treasures  of  ancient  art.  His  tomb 
under  the  dome  —  where  now  we  see  an  enormous  slab, 
with  the  words  '  Carolo  Magno '  —  was  inscribed,  '  Magnus 
atque  Orthodoxus  Imperator?  d  Poets,  fostered  by  his  own 
zeal,  sang  of  him  who  had  given  to  the  Franks  the  sway 
of  Romulus.6  The  gorgeous  mists  of  romance  gradually 
rose  and  wreathed  themselves  round  his  name,  till  by 
canonization  as  a  saint  he  received  the  highest  glory  the 
world  or  the  Church  could  confer.1  For  the  Roman 

d  This  basilica  was  built  upon  the  model  of  the  church  of  the  Holy  Sepul- 
chre at  Jerusalem,  and  as  it  was  the  first  church  of  any  size  that  had  been 
erected  in  those  regions  for  centuries  past,  it  excited  extraordinary  interest 
among  the  Franks  and  Gauls.  In  many  of  its  features  it  resembles  the  beauti- 
ful church  of  San  Vitale,  at  Ravenna  (also  supposed  to  have  been  influenced 
by  that  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre),  which  was  begun  by  Theodorich,  and  com- 
pleted under  Justinian.  Probably  San  Vitale  was  used  as  a  pattern  by 
Charles's  architects :  we  know  that  he  caused  marble  columns  (along  with  a 
statue  of  Theodorich)  to  be  brought  from  Ravenna  to  deck  the  church  at 
Aachen.  Over  the  tomb  of  Charles,  below  the  central  dome  (to  which  the 
existing  Pointed  choir  was  added  some  centuries  later),  there  hangs  a  huge 
chandelier,  the  gift  of  Frederick  Barbarossa. 

e  '  Romuleum  Francis  praestitit  imperium.'  —  Elegy  of  Ermoldus  Nigellus, 
in  Pertz,  M.  G.  H.  t.  ii.  So  too  Florus  the  Deacon  — 

Huic  etenim  cessit  etiam  gens  Romula  genti, 

Regnorumque  simul  mater  Roma  inclyta  cessit: 

Huius  ibi  princeps  regni  diademata  sumpsit 

Munere  apostolico,  Christi  munimine  fretus.' 

(Ap.  Migne,  cxix.  p.  251.) 

f  A  curious  illustration  of  the  influence  of  the  name  and  fame  of  Charles, 
even  on  remote  nations,  is  supplied  by  a  story  in  the  Heimskringla  of  Snorri 
Sturluson.  Alfhild,  a  concubine  of  St.  Olaf,  had  given  birth  to  a  child  at 
night,  while  Olaf  was  asleep;  and  Sigvat  his  favourite  skald,  seeing  it  to  be 
weak,  and  fearing  it  might  die,  caused  it  to  be  baptized  at  once,  and  gave 
it  the  name  of  Magnus.  When  the  king  awoke  and  heard  what  had  been 
done,  he  was  angry,  and  calling  Sigvat  asked, '  Why  hast  thou  called  the  child 


76  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  v.  Church  claimed  then,  as  she  claims  still,  the  privilege 
which,  in  one  form  or  another,  humanity  seems  scarce  able 
to  deny  itself,  of  raising  to  honours  almost  divine  its  great 
departed ;  and  as  in  pagan  times  temples  had  risen  to  a 
deified  Emperor,  so  churches  were  dedicated  to  St.  Charle- 
magne. Between  Sanctus  Carolus  and  Divus  Julius  how 
strange  an  analogy  and  how  strange  a  contrast ! 

Magnus,  which  is  not  a  name  of  our  race?'  The  skald  answered,  'I  called 
him  after  king  Karl  Magnus,  who  I  knew  had  been  the  best  man  in  the  world.' 
The  child  grew  up  to  be  king  Magnus  the  Good,  the  most  popular  and  one  of 
the  greatest  of  the  Norwegian  kings;  and  from  him  the  name  became  a  com- 
mon one,  as  it  is  to-day,  over  all  the  North. 


CHAPTER  VI 

CAROLINGIAN   AND    ITALIAN    EMPERORS 

LEWIS  the  Pious,a  left  by  Charles's  death  sole  heir,  CHAP.VI. 
had  been  some  years  before  associated  with  his  father  in  Lewis  the 
the  Empire,  and  had  been  crowned  by  his  father's  hand  in  Punu' 
a  way  which,  intentionally  or  not,  appeared  to  deny  the 
need  of  papal  sanction.  But  it  was  soon  seen  that  the 
strength  to  grasp  the  sceptre  had  not  passed  with  it.  Too 
mild  to  restrain  his  turbulent  nobles,  and  thrown  by  over- 
conscientiousness  into  the  hands  of  the  clergy,  he  had 
reigned  few  years  when  dissensions  broke  out  on  all  sides. 
Charles  had  wished  the  Empire  to  continue  one,  under  the 
supremacy  of  a  single  Emperor,  but  with  its  several  parts, 
Lombardy,  Aquitaine,  Austrasia,  Bavaria,  each  a  kingdom 
held  by  a  scion  of  the  reigning  house.  A  scheme  danger- 
ous in  itself,  and  rendered  more  so  by  the  absence  or  neg- 
lect of  regular  rules  of  succession,  could  with  difficulty 
have  been  managed  by  a  wise  and  firm  monarch.  Lewis 
tried  in  vain  to  satisfy  his  sons  (Lothar,  Lewis,  and 
Charles)  by  dividing  and  redividing  his  dominions :  they 
rebelled ;  he  was  deposed,  and  forced  by  the  bishops  to  do 
penance,  again  restored,  but  without  power,  a  tool  in  the 
hands  of  contending  factions.  On  his  death  the  sons  flew 
to  arms,  and  the  first  of  the  dynastic  quarrels  of  modern 
Europe  was  fought  out  on  the  field  of  Fontenay.  In  the 

•  Usage  has  established  this  translation  of '  Hludowicus  Pius,'  but  '  gentle ' 
or  '  kind-hearted '  would  better  express  the  meaning  of  the  epithet. 

77 


78  THE   HOLY    ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  vi.      partition  treaty  of  Verdun  which  followed,  the  Teutonic 

Partition  of    principle  of  equal  division  among  heirs  triumphed  over  the 

Roman  one  of  the  transmission  of  an  indivisible  Empire : 

A.D.  843. 

the  practical  sovereignty  of  all  three  brothers  was  admitted 
in  their  respective  territories,  while  a  barren  precedence 
Lotkar  I.  was  reserved  to  Lothar,  with  the  imperial  title  which  he,  as 
the  eldest,  already  enjoyed.  A  more  important  result  was 
the  separation  of  the  Gaulish  and  German  nationalities. 
Their  difference  of  feeling,  shewn  already  in  the  support  of 
Lewis  the  Pious  by  the  Germans  against  the  Gallo-Franks 
and  the  Church,  perhaps  an  early  instance  of  the  aversion 
of  the  Teutonic  peoples  to  the  pretensions  of  the  spiritual 
power,  took  now  a  permanent  shape :  modern  Germany 
proclaims  the  era  of  A.D.  843  the  beginning  of  her  national 
existence,  and  celebrated  its  thousandth  anniversary  in 
1843.  To  Charles  the  Bald  was  given  Francia  Occiden- 
talis,  that  is  to  say,  Neustria  and  Aquitaine ;  to  Lothar, 
who  as  Emperor  must  possess  the  two  capitals,  Rome  and 
Aachen,  a  long  and  narrow  kingdom  stretching  from  the 
North  Sea  to  the  Mediterranean,  and  including  the  north- 
ern half  of  Italy ;  Lewis  (surnamed,  from  his  kingdom,  the 
German)  received  all  east  of  the  Rhine,  —  Franks,  Saxons, 
Bavarians,  Austria,  Carinthia,  with  possible  supremacies 
over  Czechs  in  far-off  Bohemia  and  Moravia.  Through- 
out these  regions  German  or  some  Slavonic  tongue  was 
spoken ;  through  Charles's  kingdom  a  corrupt  language, 
equally  removed  from  Latin  and  from  modern  French. 
Lothar's,  being  mixed  and  having  no  national  basis,  was 
the  weakest  of  the  three,  and  soon  dissolved  into  the  sep- 
arate sovereignties  of  Italy,  Burgundy,  and  Lotharingia, 
the  name  of  which  is  perpetuated  in  the  German  Loth- 
ringen,  the  French  Lorraine. 

On  the  tangled  history  of  the  period  that  follows  it  is 
not  possible  to  do  more  than  touch.     After  passing  from 


CAROLINGIAN   AND   ITALIAN   EMPERORS  79 

one  branch  of  the  Carolingian  line  to  another,1*  the  imperial  CHAP.  vi. 
sceptre  was  at  last  possessed  and  disgraced  by  Charles  the  Lewis  n- 
Fat,  who  united  all  the  dominions  of  his  great-grandfather.    Charles  H 

TU-  4-U       u    •  U  -i    u-  ir      r  j     (^  Bald). 

This  unworthy  heir  could  not  avail  himself  of  recovered 

J  Charles  III 

territory  to  strengthen  or  defend  the  expiring  monarchy,    (the  Fat). 
He  was  driven  out   of  Italy  in  A.D.  887,  and  his  death  in   End  of  the 


has  been  usually  taken  as  the  date  of  the  extinction  of   Carolinstan 
the  Carolingian  Empire  of  the  West.     The  Germans,  still  the  West> 
attached  to  the  ancient  line,  chose  Arnulf,  an  illegitimate  A.D.  888. 
Carolingian  (grandson  of    Lewis  the   German),  for  their 
king :  he  entered  Italy  and  was  crowned  Emperor  by  his 
partisan  the  Corsican   Pope  Formosus,  in  896.     But  Ger- 
many, divided  and  helpless,  was  in  no  condition  to  main- 
tain her  power  over  the  Southern  lands  :  Arnulf  retreated 
in  haste,  leaving  Rome  and  Italy  to  sixty  years  of  stormy 
independence. 

That  time  was  indeed  the  nadir  of  order  and  civilization. 
From  all  sides  the  torrent  of  barbarism  which  Charles  the 
Great  had  stemmed  was  rushing  down  upon  his  Empire. 
The  Saracen  wasted  the  Mediterranean  coasts,  and  sacked 
Rome  herself.  The  Dane  and  Norseman  swept  the  Atlan- 
tic and  the  North  Sea,  pierced  France  and  Germany  by 
their  rivers,  burning,  slaying,  carrying  off  into  captivity : 
pouring  through  the  Straits  of  Gibraltar,  they  fell  upon 
Provence  and  Italy.  By  land,  while  Wends  and  Czechs 
and  Obotrites  threw  off  the  German  yoke  and  threatened 
the  borders,  the  wild  Hungarian  bands,  pressing  in  from 
the  steppes  of  the  Caspian,  dashed  over  Germany  like  the 
flying  spray  of  a  new  wave  of  barbarism,  and  carried 
the  terror  of  their  battleaxes  to  the  Apennines  and  the 
ocean.  Under  such  strokes  the  already  loosened  fabric 

b  The  dynasty  of  the  region  which  was  to  become  modern  France  (Fran- 
cia  occidentalis)  had  the  least  share  of  it.  Charles  the  Bald  was  the  only 
West  Prankish  Emperor,  and  reigned  a  very  short  time. 


8o 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  VI. 


The  German 
kingdom. 


Henry  the 
Fowler. 


Otto  the 
Great. 


swiftly  dissolved.  No  one  thought  of  common  defence  or 
wide  organization  :  the  strong  built  castles,  the  weak  be- 
came their  bondsmen,  or  took  shelter  under  the  cowl :  the 
governor  —  count,  abbot,  or  bishop — tightened  his  grasp, 
turned  a  delegated  into  an  independent,  a  personal  into  a 
territorial  authority,  and  hardly  owned  a  distant  and  feeble 
suzerain.  The  grand  vision  of  a  universal  Christian  Empire 
was  being  utterly  lost  in  the  isolation,  the  antagonism,  the 
increasing  localization  of  all  powers  :  it  might  seem  to 
have  been  but  a  passing  gleam  from  an  older  and  better 
world. 

In  Germany,  the  greatness  of  the  evil  worked  at  last  its 
cure.  When  the  male  line  of  the  Eastern  branch  of  the 
Carolingians  had  ended  in  Lewis  (surnamed  the  Child),  son 
of  Arnulf,  the  chieftains  chose  and  the  people  accepted  as 
king  Conrad  duke  of  the  Franconians,  and  after  him  Henry 
duke  of  the  Saxons,  both  representing  the  female  line  of 
Charles.  Henry  laid  the  foundations  of  a  firm  monarchy, 
driving  back  the  Magyars  and  Wends,  recovering  Lotha- 
ringia,  founding  towns  to  be  centres  of  orderly  life  and 
strongholds  against  Hungarian  irruptions.  He  had  meant 
to  claim  at  Rome  the  rights  of  his  kingdom,  rights  which 
Conrad's  weakness  had  at  least  asserted  by  the  demand  of 
tribute ;  but  death  overtook  him,  and  the  plan  was  left  to 
be  fulfilled  by  Otto  his  son. 

The  Holy  Roman  Empire,  taking  the  name  in  the  sense 
which  it  commonly  bore  in  later  centuries,  as  denoting  the 
sovereignty  of  Germany  and  Italy  vested  in  a  Germanic 
prince,  is  the  creation  of  Otto  the  Great.  Substantially,  it 
is  true,  as  well  as  technically,  it  was  a  prolongation  of  the 
Empire  of  Charles  ;  and  it  rested  (as  will  be  shewn  in  the 
sequel)  upon  ideas  essentially  the  same  as  those  which 
brought  about  the  coronation  of  A.D.  800.  But  a  revival  is 
always  more  or  less  a  revolution  :  the  one  hundred  and 


CAROLINGIAN   AND   ITALIAN   EMPERORS  8 1 

fifty  years  that  had  passed  since  the  death  of  Charles  had  CHAP.  vi. 
brought  with  them  changes  which  made  Otto's  position  in 
Germany  and  Europe  less  commanding  and  less  autocratic 
than  his  predecessor's.  With  narrower  geographical  limits, 
his  Empire  had  a  less  plausible  claim  to  be  the  heir  of  Rome's 
universal  dominion  ;  and  there  were  also  differences  in  its 
inner  character  and  structure  sufficient  to  justify  us  in  con- 
sidering Otto  (as  he  is  usually  considered  by  his  country- 
men) not  a  mere  successor  after  an  interregnum,  but  rather 
a  second  founder  of  the  imperial  throne  in  the  West. 

Before  Otto's  descent  into  Italy  is  described,  something 
must  be  said  of  the  condition  of  that  country,  where  cir- 
cumstances had  again  made  possible  the  plan  of  Theodorich, 
permitted  it  to  become  an  independent  kingdom,  and  given 
the  title  of  Emperor  to  its  king. 

The  bestowal  of  the  imperial  crown  on  Charles  the  Great 
was  long  afterwards  described  as  a  'transference  of  the 
Empire  from  the  Greeks  to  the  Franks.'  But  it  was  not 
in  this  light  that  the  men  of  time  regarded  it.  There  was 
no  conscious  purpose  of  settling  the  office  in  one  nation  or 
one  dynasty :  there  was  but  an  extension  of  that  long- 
established  principle  of  the  equality  of  all  Romans  which 
had  made  Trajan  and  Maximin  Emperors.  The  'arcanum 
imperil]  whereof  Tacitus  speaks,  ' posse  principem  alibi 
quam  Romae  fieri,' c  had  even  in  heathen  days  become 
alitim  quam  Romanum ;  and  now,  the  names  of  Roman 
and  Christian  having  grown  co-extensive,  a  barbarian  chief- 
tain was,  as  a  Roman  citizen,  eligible  to  the  office  of  Roman 
Emperor.  Treating  him  as  such,  the  people  and  pontiff 
of  the  capital  had  in  the  vacancy  of  the  Eastern  throne 
asserted  their  ancient  rights  of  election,  and  while  attempt- 
ing to  reverse  the  act  of  Constantine,  had,  as  it  turned  out, 
re-established  the  division  of  Valentinian.  The  dignity 

«  Tac.  Hist.  i.  4. 
G 


82  THE    HOLY   ROMAN    EMPIRE 

CHAP.  vi.  was  therefore  in  strictness  personal  to  Charles  ;  though,  in 
point  of  fact,  and  by  consent,  it  tended  to  become  heredita- 
rily transmissible,  just  as  it  had  formerly  been  transmitted  in 
the  families  of  Constantine  and  Theodosius.  To  the  Prank- 
ish crown  or  nation  it  was  by  no  means  legally  attached, 
though  the  Franks  might  think  it  to  be  so ;  it  had  passed 
to  their  king  only  because  he  was  the  greatest  European 
potentate,  and  might  equally  well  pass  to  some  stronger 
race,  if  any  such  appeared.  Hence,  when  the  line  of 
Carolingian  Emperors  ended  in  Charles  the  Fat,  the 
rights  of  Rome  and  Italy  might  be  taken  to  revive,  and 
there  was  nothing  to  prevent  the  citizens  and  the  Pope 
from  choosing  whom  they  would.  At  that  memorable  era 
(A.D.  888)  the  four  kingdoms  which  this  prince  had  united 
fell  asunder ;  West  France,  where  Odo  or  Eudes  then  be- 
gan to  reign,  was  never  again  united  to  Germany ;  East 
France  (Germany)  chose  Arnulf ;  Burgundy  d  split  up  into 
two  principalities,  in  one  of  which  (Transjurane)  Rudolf 
proclaimed  himself  king,  while  the  other  (Cisjurane  with 
Provence)  submitted  to  Boso ; e  while  Italy  (i.e.  Northern 
and  Middle  Italy,  for  Southern  Italy  still  obeyed  Constanti- 
nople) was  divided  between  the  parties  of  Berengar  of 

d  For  an  account  of  the  various  applications  of  the  name  Burgundy,  see 
Appendix,  Note  A. 

e  The  accession  of  Boso  took  place  in  A.D.  877,  eleven  years  before  Charles 
the  Fat's  death.  But  the  new  kingdom  could  not  be  considered  legally 
settled  until  the  latter  date,  and  its  establishment  is  at  any  rate  a  part  of 
that  general  break-up  of  the  great  Carolingian  Empire  whereof  A.D.  888 
marks  the  crisis.  See  Appendix,  Note  A. 

It  is  a  curious  mark  of  the  reverence  paid  to  the  Carolingian  blood, 
that  Boso,  a  powerful  and  ambitious  prince,  seems  to  have  chiefly  rested 
his  claims  on  the  fact  that  he  was  husband  of  Irmingard,  daughter  of  the 
Emperor  Lewis  II.  Baron  de  Gingins  la  Sarraz  {Archiv  fur  Schweizer 
Geschichte)  quotes  a  charter  of  his  (drawn  up  when  he  seems  to  have  doubted 
whether  to  call  himself  king),  which  begins,  'Ego  Boso  Dei  gratia  id  quod 
sum,  et  coniux  mea  Irmingardis  proles  imperialis.' 


CAROLINGIAN   AND   ITALIAN   EMPERORS  83 

Friuli  and  Guido  of  Spoleto.  The  former  was  chosen  CHAP.  vi. 
king  by  the  estates  of  Lombardy ;  the  latter,  and  on  his 
speedy  death  his  son  Lambert,  was  crowned  Emperor  by 
the  Pope.  Arnulf  s  descent  chased  them  away  and  vindi- 
cated the  claims  of  the  Franks,  but  on  his  flight  the  Italians 
and  anti-German  faction  at  Rome  became  again  free. 
Berengar  was  made  king  of  Italy,  and  afterwards  Em- 
peror. Lewis  of  Burgundy,  son  of  Boso,  renounced  his 
fealty  to  Berengar,  and  procured  the  imperial  dignity, 
whose  vain  title  he  retained  through  years  of  misery  and 
exile,  till  A.D.  928.*  No  one  of  these  Emperors  was  strong 
enough  to  rule  well  even  in  Italy  ;  beyond  it  they  were  not 
so  much  as  recognized.  The  crown  had  become  a  bauble 
with  which  unscrupulous  Popes  dazzled  the  vanity  of  princes 
whom  they  summoned  to  their  aid,  and  soothed  the  credu- 
lity of  their  more  honest  supporters.  The  demoraliza- 
tion and  confusion  of  the  country,  the  shameless  profligacy 
of  Rome  and  her  pontiffs  during  this  period,  were  enough 
to  prevent  a  true  Italian  kingdom  from  being  built  up  on 
the  basis  of  Roman  choice  and  national  unity.  Italian 
indeed  it  could  scarcely  be  called,  for  these  Emperors 
were  still  in  blood  and  manners  Teutonic,  and  akin  rather 
to  their  Transalpine  neighbours  than  to  their  Romanic  sub- 
jects. But  Italian  it  might  soon  have  become  under  a 
vigorous  rule  which  would  have  organized  it  within  and 
knit  it  together  to  resist  attacks  from  without.  And  there- 
fore the  attempt  to  establish  such  a  kingdom  is  remarkable, 
for  it  might  have  had  great  consequences  ;  might,  if  it  had 
prospered,  have  spared  Italy  much  suffering  and  Germany 
endless  waste  of  strength  and  blood.  He  who  from  the 
summit  of  Milan  cathedral  sees  across  the  misty  plain  the 
gleaming  turrets  of  its  icy  wall  sweep  in  a  great  arc  from 

f  Lewis  had  been  surprised  by  Berengar  at  Verona,  blinded,  and  forced  to 
take  refuge  in  his  own  kingdom  of  Provence. 


84 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  vi.  North  to  West,  may  well  wonder  that  a  land  which  nature 
has  so  severed  from  its  neighbours  should,  since  history  be- 
gins, have  been  so  often  the  victim  of  their  intrusive  tyranny. 
In  A.D.  924  died  Berengar,  the  last  of  these  phantom 
Emperors.  After  him  Hugh  of  Burgundy,  and  Lothar 
his  son,  reigned  as  kings  of  Italy,  if  puppets  in  the  hands 
of  a  riotous  aristocracy  can  be  so  called.  Rome  was 
meanwhile  ruled  by  the  consul  or  senator  Alberic,g  who 
had  placed  himself  at  the  head  of  her  never  quite  extinct 
republican  institutions,  and  in  the  weakness  of  the  Papacy 
was  almost  absolute  in  the  city.  Lothar  dying,  his  widow 
Adelheidh  was  sought  in  marriage  by  Adalbert  son  of 
Berengar  II,  the  new  Italian  monarch.  A  gleam  of 
romance  is  shed  on  the  Empire's  revival  by  her  beauty 
and  her  adventures.  Rejecting  the  odious  alliance,  she 
was  seized  by  Berengar,  escaped  with  difficulty  from 
the  loathsome  prison  where  his  barbarity  had  confined 
her,  and  appealed  to  Otto  the  German  king,  the  model  of 
that  knightly  virtue  which  was  beginning  to  shew  itself 
after  the  fierce  brutality  of  the  last  age.  He  listened, 
descended  into  Lombardy  by  the  Adige  valley,  espoused 
the  injured  queen  *  and  forced  Berengar  to  hold  his  king- 
dom as  a  vassal  of  the  East  Prankish  crown.  That  prince 
was  turbulent  and  faithless ;  new  complaints  ere  long 
reached  his  liege  lord,  and  envoys  from  the  Pope  offered 
Otto  the  imperial  title  if  he  would  revisit  and  pacify  Italy. 
The  proposal  was  well-timed.  Men  still  thought,  as  they 
had  thought  in  the  centuries  before  the  Carolingians,  that 
the  Empire  was  suspended,  not  extinct ;  and  the  desire 

*  Alberic  is  called  variously  senator,  consul,  patrician,  and  prince  of  the 
Romans. 

h  Adelheid  was  daughter  of  Rudolf,  king  of  Transjurane  Burgundy.  She 
was  at  this  time  in  her  nineteenth  year. 

1  Otto's  first  wife,  the  English  Edith,  grand-daughter  of  Alfred  the  Great, 
had  died  some  time  before. 


CAROLINGIAN   AND   ITALIAN   EMPERORS  85 

to  see  its  effective  power  restored,  the  belief  that  with-  CHAP.VI. 
out  it  the  world  could  never  be  right,  might  seem  better 
grounded  than  it  had  been  before  the  coronation  of 
Charles.  Then  the  imperial  name  had  recalled  only  the  Motives  for 
faint  memories  of  Roman  majesty  and  order:  now  it  was  revivinstht 
also  associated  with  the  golden  age  of  the  first  Frankish 
Emperor,  when  a  single  firm  and  just  hand  had  guided 
the  State,  reformed  the  Church,  repressed  the  excesses  of 
local  power :  when  Christianity  had  advanced  against 
heathendom,  civilizing  as  she  went,  fearing  neither  Hun 
nor  Saracen.  One  annalist  tells  us  that  Charles  was 
elected  'lest  the  pagans  should  insult  the  Christians,  if 
the  name  of  Emperor  should  have  ceased  among  the 
Christians.' j  The  motive  would  be  bitterly  enforced 
by  the  calamities  of  the  last  fifty  years.  In  a  time  of 
disintegration,  confusion,  strife,  all  the  longings  of  every 
wiser  and  better  soul  for  unity,  for  peace  and  law,  for 
some  bond  to  bring  Christian  men  and  Christian  states 
together  against  the  common  enemy  of  the  faith,  were 
but  so  many  cries  for  the  restoration  of  the  Roman 
Empire.*  These  were  the  feelings  that  on  the  field  of 
Merseburg  broke  forth  in  the  shout  of  '  Henry  the 
Emperor ' :  these  the  hopes  of  the  Teutonic  host  when  A.D.  933. 
after  the  great  deliverance  of  the  Lechfeld  they  greeted 

J  Chron.  Moiss.,  in  Pertz,  M.  G,  H.  i.  305.  So  Pope  John  VIII,  when  sum- 
moning Charles  the  Bald  into  Italy,  says,  '  Et  hanc  terrain,  quae  sui  imperii 
caput  est,  ad  libertatem  reducat,  ne  quando  dicant  gentes :  Ubi  est  imperator 
illius  ? '  —  Letter  in  Mansi,  Condi,  xvii.  29. 

k  See  especially  the  poem  of  Floras  the  Deacon  (printed  in  the  Benedictine 
collection  and  in  Migne,  cxix.  pp.  249-253),  a  bitter  lament  over  the  dissolu- 
tion of  the  Carolingian  Empire,  from  which  I  take  four  lines  (p.  251)  :  — 
•Quid  faciant  populi  quos  ingens  alluit  Hister, 
Quos  Rhenus  Rhodanusque  rigant,  Ligerisve,  Padusve, 
Quos  omnes  dudum  tenuit  concordia  nexos, 
Foedere  nunc  rupto  divortia  moesta  fatigant  ?' 


86 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


Condition 
of  Italy. 


CHAP.  vi.      Otto,  conqueror  of  the    Magyars,    as    '  Imperator,    Pater 
Patriae.' 1 

The  anarchy  which  an  Emperor  was  needed  to  heal  was 
at  its  worst  in  Italy,  desolated  by  the  feuds  of  a  crowd  of 
petty  princes.  A  succession  of  infamous  Popes,  raised  by 
means  yet  more  infamous,  the  paramours  and  sons  of  Theo- 
dora and  Marozia,  had  disgraced  the  chair  of  the  Apostle, 
and  though  Rome  herself  might  be  lost  to  decency,  Western 
Christendom  was  roused  to  anger.  The  rule  of  Alberic  had 
been  succeeded  by  the  wildest  confusion,  and  calls  were 
heard  for  the  renewal  of  that  imperial  authority  which  all 
admitted  in  theory,m  and  which  nothing  but  the  resolute 
opposition  of  Alberic  himself  had  prevented  Otto  from 
claiming  in  95 1.  From  the  Eastern  Empire,  to  which  Italy 
was  more  than  once  tempted  to  turn,  nothing  could  be 
hoped  ;  its  dangers  from  foreign  enemies  were  aggravated 
by  the  plots  of  the  court  and  the  seditions  of  the  capital ; 
it  was  becoming  more  and  more  alienated  from  the  West 
by  the  Photian  schism  and  the  question  regarding  the 
Procession  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  which  that  quarrel  had 
started.  Germany  was  extending  and  consolidating  her- 
self, had  escaped  domestic  perils,  and  might  think  of  re- 
viving ancient  claims.  No  one  could  be  more  willing  to 
revive  them  than  Otto  the  Great.  His  ardent  spirit,  after 
waging  a  successful  struggle  against  the  turbulent  magnates 
of  his  German  realm,  had  engaged  him  in  wars  with  the 
surrounding  nations,  and  was  now  captivated  by  the  vision 
of  a  wider  sway  and  a  loftier  world-embracing  dignity. 
Nor  was  the  prospect  which  the  papal  offer  opened  up  less 

1  Widukind,  Annales  (bk.  iii.  c.  49),  in  Pertz,  M.  G.  H.,  Script,  iii.  p.  459. 
It  may,  however,  be  doubted  whether  the  annalist  is  not  here  giving  a  very 
free  rendering  of  the  triumphant  cries  of  the  German  army. 

m  Cf.  esp.  the  '  Libellus  de  imperatoria  potestate  in  urbe  JRoma,'  in  Pertz, 
M.  G.  ff.,  Script,  iii.  pp.  719-722. 


CAROLINGIAN   AND   ITALIAN   EMPERORS  87 

welcome  to  his  people.  Aachen,  their  capital,  was  the  CHAP.  vi. 
ancestral  home  of  the  house  of  Pipin :  their  sovereign,  al- 
though himself  a  Saxon  by  race,  titled  himself  king  of  the 
Franks,  in  opposition  to  the  Prankish  rulers  of  the  Western 
branch,  whose  Teutonic  character  was  disappearing  among 
the  Romanized  inhabitants  of  Gaul.  They  held  themselves 
in  every  way  the  true  representatives  of  the  Carolingian 
power,  and  accounted  the  period  since  Arnulf's  death 
nothing  but  an  interregnum  which  had  suspended  but 
not  impaired  their  rights  over  Rome.  '  For  so  long,'  says 
a  writer  of  the  time,  '  as  there  remain  kings  of  the  Franks, 
so  long  will  the  dignity  of  the  Roman  Empire  not  wholly 
perish,  seeing  that  it  will  abide  in  its  kings. ' n  The  recovery 
of  Italy  was  therefore  to  German  eyes  a  righteous  as  well 
as  a  glorious  design,  approved  by  the  Teutonic  Church 
which  had  lately  been  negotiating  with  Rome  on  the  sub- 
ject of  missions  to  the  heathen,  embraced  by  the  people, 
who  saw  in  it  an  accession  of  strength  to  their  young  king- 
dom. Everything  smiled  on  Otto's  enterprise,  and  the 
connection  which  was  destined  to  bring  so  much  strife 
and  woe  to  Germany  and  to  Italy  was  welcomed  by  the 
wisest  of  both  countries  as  the  beginning  of  a  better 
era. 

Whatever   were   Otto's   own   feelings,  whether   or   not  Descent  of 
misgivings  were  within  him  lest  he  might  be  sacrificing,  as   G°eatinto 
modern   writers  have   thought  that   he   did  sacrifice,  the  Italy. 
greatness  of  his  German  kingdom  to  the  lust  of  universal 
dominion,  he  shewed  no  hesitation  in  his  acts.     Descend- 
ing from   the  Alps  with  an  overpowering   force,  he  was 

n  '  Licet  videamus  Romanorum  regnum  in  maxima  parte  iam  destructum, 
tamen  quamdiu  reges  Francorum  duraverint  qui  Romanum  imperium  tenere 
debent,  dignitas  Roman!  imperil  ex  toto  non  peribit,  quia  stabit  in  regibus 
suis.' — Liber  de  Antichristo,  addressed  by  Adso,  abbot  of  Moutier-en-Der, 
to  Queen  Gerberga  (circa  A.D.  950),  ap.  Migne,  ci.  p.  1290. 


88  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  vi.      acknowledged  as  king  of  Italy  at  Pavia ;  °  and,  having  first 

taken   an  oath  to  protect  the  Holy  See  and   respect  the 

His  corona-     liberties   of  the   city,  advanced   to  Rome.      There,  with 

twn  at  Rome,  Adelheid  his  queen,  he  was  crowned  in  the  church  of  St. 

A.D.  962.  ' 

John  Lateran  by  John  XII,  on  the  day  of  the  Purification, 
the  second  of  February,  A.D.  962.  The  details  of  his  elec- 
tion and  coronation  are  unfortunately  still  more  scanty 
than  in  the  case  of  his  great  predecessor.  Most  of  our 
authorities  dwell  chiefly  on  the  Pope's  part  in  the  act,p  yet 
it  is  plain  that  the  consent  of  the  people  was  still  thought 
an  essential  part  of  the  ceremony,  and  that  Otto  rested 
after  all  on  his  host  of  conquering  Saxons.  Be  this  as  it 
may,  there  was  neither  question  raised  nor  opposition  made 
in  Rome.  The  usual  courtesies  and  promises  were  ex- 
changed between  Emperor  and  Pope,  the  latter  owning 
himself  a  subject,  and  the  citizens  swore  for  the  future  to 
elect  no  pontiff  without  Otto's  consent. 

0  From  the  money  which  Otto  struck  in  Italy,  it  seems  that  he  did 
occasionally  use  the  title  of  king  of  Italy  or  of  the  Lombards.  That  he  was 
crowned  is  perhaps  not  absolutely  certain. 

P  '  A  papa  imperator  ordinatur,'  says  Hermannus  Contractus.  '  Dominum 
Ottonem,  ad  hoc  usque  vocatum  regem,  non  solum  Romano  sed  et  poene 
totius  Europae  populo  acclamante  imperatorem  consecravit  Augustum.'  — 
Annal.  Quedlinb.,  ad  ann.  962.  '  Benedictionem  a  domno  apostolico  lohanne, 
cuius  rogatione  hue  venit,  cum  sua  coniuge  promeruit  imperialem  ac  patronus 
Romanae  effectus  est  ecclesiae.' — Thietmar,  ii.  c.  7  (Pertz,  M.  G.  H., 
Script,  iii.  p.  747).  'Acclamatione  totius  Romani  populi  ab  apostolico 
lohanne,  filio  Alberici,  imperator  et  Augustus  vocatur  et  ordinatur.'  —  Con- 
tinuator  Reginonis,  s.  a.  962  (Pertz,  M.  G.  //.,  Script,  i.  p.  625).  And  simi- 
larly the  other  annalists. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THEORY  OF  THE  MEDIAEVAL  EMPIRE 

THESE  were  the  events  and  circumstances  of  the  time:  CHAP. vn. 
let  us  now  look  at  the  causes.  The  restoration  of  the  Why  the 
Empire  by  Charles  may  seem  to  be  sufficiently  accounted  ^^Empire 
for  by  the  width  of  his  conquests,  by  the  peculiar  connec-  was  desired. 
tion  which  already  subsisted  between  him  and  the  Roman 
Church,  by  his  commanding  personal  character,  by  the 
temporary  vacancy  of  the  throne  at  Constantinople.  The 
causes  of  its  revival  under  Otto  must  be  sought  deeper. 
Making  every  allowance  for  the  favouring  incidents  which 
have  already  been  dwelt  upon,  there  must  have  been  some 
further  influence  at  work  to  draw  him  and  his  successors, 
Saxon  and  Prankish  kings,  so  far  from  home  in  pursuit 
of  a  barren  crown,  to  lead  the  Italians  to  accept  the  do- 
minion of  a  stranger  and  a  barbarian,  to  make  the  Empire 
itself  appear  through  the  whole  Middle  Age  not  what  it 
seems  now,  a  gorgeous  anachronism,  but  an  institution 
divine  and  necessary,  having  its  foundations  in  the  very 
nature  and  order  of  things.  The  Empire  of  the  elder 
Rome  had  been  splendid  in  its  life,  yet  its  judgement  was 
written  in  the  misery  to  which  it  had  brought  the  pro- 
vinces, and  the  helplessness  that  had  invited  the  attacks 
of  the  barbarian.  Now,  as  we  at  least  can  see,  it  had  long 
been  dead,  and  the  course  of  events  was  adverse  to  its  re- 
vival. Its  actual  representatives,  the  Roman  people,  were 
a  turbulent  rabble,  sunk  in  a  profligacy  notorious  even  in 
that  rude  age.  Yet  not  the  less  for  all  this  did  men  cling 

89 


THE   HOLY    ROMAN   EMPIRE 


Mediaeval 
theories. 


CHAP.  vii.  to  the  idea,  and  strive  through  long  ages  to  stem  the  irre- 
sistible time-current,  fondly  believing  that  they  were  breast- 
ing it  even  while  it  was  sweeping  them  ever  faster  and 
faster  away  from  the  old  order  into  a  region  of  new 
thoughts,  new  feelings,  new  forms  of  life.  Not  till  the 
clays  of  the  Renaissance  and  the  Reformation  was  the 
illusion  dispelled. 

The  explanation  is  to  be  found  in  the  beliefs  which  filled 
the  human  mind  during  these  centuries.  To  describe  those 
beliefs  concisely  and  yet  faithfully  is  difficult,  for  although 
some  of  their  salient  features  remained  substantially  the 
same  from  the  days  of  St.  Augustine  almost  to  the  days  of 
Erasmus,  no  single  epoch  in  that  long  series  of  generations 
can  be  taken  as  shewing  them  in  their  full  and  typical  com- 
pleteness. The  system  of  ideas  which  created  and  sustained 
the  Holy  Empire  was  in  some  of  its  aspects,  or  some  of  its 
parts,  constantly  growing,  in  other  aspects  and  other  parts 
constantly  decaying,  from  the  fifth  century  to  the  fifteenth, 
the  relative  prominence  of  its  cardinal  doctrines  varying 
from  age  to  age.  But,  just  as  the  painter  who  sees  the  ever- 
shifting  lights  and  shades  play  over  the  face  of  a  wide  land- 
scape faster  than  his  brush  can  place  them  on  the  canvas, 
in  despair  at  representing  their  exact  position  at  any  single 
moment,  contents  himself  with  painting  the  effects  that 
are  broadest  and  most  permanent,  and  at  giving  rather 
the  impression  which  the  scene  makes  on  him  than  every 
detail  of  the  scene  itself,  so  here  the  best  and  indeed  the 
only  practicable  course  seems  to  be  that  of  setting  forth 
in  its  most  self-consistent  form  the  body  of  ideas  and  be- 
liefs on  which  the  Empire  rested,  although  this  form  may 
not  be  exactly  that  which  they  can  be  asserted  to  have 
worn  in  any  one  century,  and  although  the  illustrations 
adduced  may  have  to  be  taken  sometimes  from  earlier, 
sometimes  from  later  writers.  As  the  fundamental  doc- 


THEORY   OF  THE   MEDIAEVAL  EMPIRE  91 

trines  were  in  their  essence  the  same  during   the  whole  CHAP.  vn. 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  such  a  general  description  as  is  here 
attempted  may,  mutatis  mutandis,  serve  true  for  the  tenth 
as  well  as  for  the  fourteenth  century. 

The  Middle  Ages  were,  as  compared  with  the  ages  that 
preceded  and  the  ages  that  followed,  essentially  unpoliti- 
cal. Ideas  as  familiar  to  the  commonwealths  of  antiquity 
as  to  ourselves,  ideas  of  the  common  good  as  the  object  of 
the  State,  of  the  rights  of  the  people,  of  the  comparative 
merits  of  different  forms  of  government,  were  to  those 
generations,  though  such  ideas  often  found  an  unconscious 
expression  in  practical  expedients,  in  their  speculative  form 
little  known,  and  to  most  men  incomprehensible.a  Feu- 
dalism was  the  one  great  secular  institution  to  which  those 
times  gave  birth,  and  feudalism  was  a  social  and  a  legal 
system,  only  indirectly  and  by  consequence  a  political  one. 
Yet  the  human  mind,  so  far  from  being  idle,  was  in  cer- 
tain directions  never  more  active ;  nor  was  it  possible  for 
it  to  remain  without  general  conceptions  regarding  the 
relation  of  men  to  each  other  in  this  world.  Such  concep- 
tions were  neither  made  an  expression  of  the  actual  pres- 
ent condition  of  things  nor  scientifically  determined  by  an 
induction  from  the  past  ;  they  were  partly  inherited  from 
the  imperial  scheme  of  law  and  government  that  had  pre- 
ceded, partly  evolved  from  the  principles  of  that  meta- 
physical theology  which  was  ripening  into  scholasticism. 
Now  the  two  great  ideas  which  expiring  antiquity  be- 
queathed to  the  ages  that  followed  were  those  of  a  World- 
Monarchy  and  a  World-Religion. 

Before  that  great  movement  towards  assimilation  which    The  World- 

r>    i •     • ^ 

began  with  the  Hellenization  of  the  East  and  was  com- 
pleted by  the  Western  and  Northern  as  well  as  the  East- 

»  Political  thought,  in  the  modern  sense  of  the  word,  began  to  re-emerge 
under  the  influence  of  Aristotle  in  the  later  half  of  the  thirteenth  century. 


92  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  vii.  ern  conquests  of  Rome,  men,  with  little  knowledge  of 
each  other,  with  no  experience  of  wide  political  union, b 
had  held  differences  of  race  to  be  natural  and  irremovable 
barriers.  Similarly,  religion  appeared  to  them  a  matter 
purely  local  and  national ;  and  as  there  were  gods  of  the 
hills  and  gods  of  the  valleys,0  gods  of  the  land  and  of  the 
sea,  so  each  tribe  rejoiced  in  its  peculiar  deities,  looking 
on  the  natives  of  another  country  who  worshipped  other 
deities  as  Gentiles,  natural  foes,  unclean  beings.  Such 
feelings,  if  keenest  in  the  East,  frequently  shew  themselves 
in  the  early  records  of  Greece  and  Italy :  in  Homer  the 
hero  who  wanders  over  the  unfruitful  sea  glories  in  sack- 
ing the  cities  of  the  stranger;4  the  primitive  Latins  have 
the  same  word  for  a  foreigner  and  an  enemy  :  the  exclusive 
systems  of  Egypt,  Hindostan,  China,  are  only  more  ve- 
hement expressions  of  the  belief  which  made  Athenian 
philosophers  look  on  a  state  of  war  between  Greeks  and 
barbarians  as  natural,  and  defend  slavery  on  the  same 
ground  of  the  original  diversity  of  the  races  that  rule  and 
the  races  that  serve.6  The  Roman  dominion  giving  to 
many  nations  a  common  speech  and  law,  smote  this  feel- 
ing on  its  political  side ;  Christianity  more  effectually 

b  Empires  like  the  Persian  did  nothing  to  assimilate  the  subject  races,  who 
retained  their  own  laws  and  customs,  sometimes  their  own  princes,  and  were 
bound  only  to  serve  in  the  armies  and  fill  the  treasury  of  the  Great  King. 
c  See  I  Kings  xx.  23,  with  which  compare  2  Kings  xvii.  26. 
d  Od.  iii.  72 :  — 

.  .  .  .  ri  (jia-js  id  ius  d\d\r)<r6ft 
old  re  \r)l'ffTrjpes,  virelp  A\a,  roir   d\6uvrai 
^i>X&j  irap9t/j.evo<.,  KO.K&V  aXXoSairoiou  (ptpovres; 

Cf.  Od.  ix.  39;  II.  v.  214  dXXirpios  c/>ws;  and  the   Hymn  to   the   Pythian 
Apollo,  1.  274. 

e  Plato,  in  the  beginning  of  the  Laws,  represents  it  as  natural  between  all 
states  :  7r6Xe/iios  0i/<ret  virdpxei  7rp6s  ctTrdcras  rds  iriXets.  Even  Aristotle  deems 
slavery  to  be  based  on  a  natural  distinction,  though  before  his  time  the  orator 
Alcidamas  had  said,  ovdtva  dov\ov  17  <£tfe 


THEORY   OF  THE   MEDIAEVAL   EMPIRE  93 

banished  it  from  the  soul  by  substituting  for  the  variety  CHAP.  vn. 
of  local  pantheons  the  belief  in  One  God,  before  whom  all 
men  are  equal.* 

It  is  on  religion  that  the  inmost  and  deepest  life  of  a  Coincide 
nation  rests.  Because  divinity  was  divided,  humanity  had  ^.'J* 
been  divided  likewise ;  the  doctrine  of  the  unity  of  God  Empire. 
now  enforced  the  unity  of  man,  who  had  been  created  in 
His  image.  The  first  lesson  of  Christianity  was  love,  a 
love  that  was  to  join  in  one  body  those  whom  suspicion 
and  prejudice  and  pride  of  race  had  hitherto  kept  apart. 
There  was  thus  formed  by  the  new  religion  a  community 
of  the  faithful,  a  Holy  Empire,  designed  to  gather  all  men 
into  its  bosom,  and  standing  opposed  to  the  manifold  poly- 
theisms of  the  older  world,  exactly  as  the  universal  sway 
of  the  Caesars  was  contrasted  with  the  innumerable  king- 
doms and  city  republics  that  had  gone  before  it.  The 
analogy  of  the  two  movements  made  them  appear  parts 
of  one  great  world-movement  towards  unity  :  the  coinci- 
dence of  their  boundaries,  which  had  begun  before  Con- 
stantine,  lasted  long  enough  after  him  to  associate  them 
indissolubly  together,  and  make  the  names  of  Roman  and 
Christian  convertible.8 

Men  who  were  already  disposed  (for  reasons  set  forth    World-state 
above11)  to  believe  the  Roman  Empire  to  be  eternal,  came,  andthfUni- 

'  €  versa/ 

under  influences  of  far  greater  power,  to  believe  the  Church,    church. 
founded  by  the  ever-living  Son  and  guided  by  the  ever- 
present  Spirit  of  God,  to  be  also  eternal.     Seeing  the  two 
institutions  allied  and  conterminous,  they  took  their  alli- 
ance and  interdependence  to  be  equally  eternal ;  and  went 

f  See  especially  Acts  xvii.  26;  Gal.  iii.  28;  Eph.  ii.  II  sqq.,  iv.  3-6;  Col. 
iii.  ii. 

8  '  Romanes  enim  vocitant  homines  nostrae  religionis,'  says  Gregory  of 
Tours.  In  the  early  Middle  Ages,  'Pu/aaioi  is  occasionally  used  to  mean 
Christians,  as  opposed  to  "EXXijm,  heathens. 

h  See  p.  12,  ante. 


94 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  VII. 


Preservation 
of  the  unity 
ofthe 
Church. 


on  for  centuries  believing  in  the  necessary  existence  of  the 
Roman  Empire,  because  they  believed  in  its  necessary 
union  with  the  Catholic  Church. 

Oecumenical  councils,  where  the  whole  spiritual  body 
gathered  itself  from  every  part  of  the  temporal  realm 
under  the  presidency  of  the  temporal  head,  presented  the 
most  visible  and  impressive  examples  of  the  connection 
of  the  World-Church  and  the  World-State.  The  language 
of  civil  government  was,  throughout  the  West,  that  of  the 
sacred  writings  and  of  worship ;  the  greatest  mind  of  his 
generation  consoled  the  faithful  for  the  fall  of  their  earthly 
commonwealth  Rome,  by  describing  to  them  its  successor 
and  representative,  the  'city  which  hath  foundations, 
whose  builder  and  maker  is  God.' l 

Of  these  two  parallel  unities,  that  of  the  political  and 
that  of  the  religious  society,  meeting  in  the  higher  unity 
of  all  Christians,  which  may  be  indifferently  called  Cathol- 
icism or  Romanism  (since  in  that  day  those  words  would 
have  had  the  same  meaning),  that  unity  only  which  had 
been  entrusted  to  the  keeping  of  the  Church  survived  the 
storms  of  the  fifth  century.  Many  reasons  may  be  assigned 
for  the  firmness  with  which  she  clung  to  it.  Seeing  one 
institution  after  another  falling  to  pieces  around  her,  see- 
ing how  countries  and  cities  were  being  severed  from  each 
other  by  the  irruption  of  strange  tribes  and  the  increasing 
difficulty  of  communication,  she  strove  to  save  religious 
fellowship  by  strengthening  the  ecclesiastical  organization, 

1  Augustine,  in  the  De  Civitate  Dei.  His  influence,  great  through  all  the 
Middle  Ages,  was  greater  on  no  one  than  on  Charles.  — '  Delectabatur  et 
libris  sancti  Augustini,  praecipueque  his  qui  De  Civitate  Dei  praetitulati  sunt.' 
—  Eginhard,  Vita  Karoli,  cap.  24.  One  can  imagine  the  impression  which 
such  a  chapter  as  that  on  the  true  happiness  of  a  Christian  Emperor  (Book  v, 
chap.  24)  would  make  upon  a  pious  and  susceptible  mind.  It  is  hardly  too 
much  to  say  that  the  Holy  Empire  was  built  upon  the  foundation  of  the  De 
Civitate  Dei. 


THEORY   OF  THE  MEDIAEVAL  EMPIRE  95 

by  drawing  tighter  every  bond  of  outward  union.  Neces-  CHAP.  vn. 
sities  of  faith  were  still  more  powerful.  Truth,  it  was 
said,  is  one,  and  as  it  must  bind  into  one  body  all  who  hold 
it,  so  it  is  only  by  continuing  in  that  body  that  they  can 
preserve  it.  There  is  one  Flock  and  one  Shepherd.  Thus 
along  with  the  growing  rigidity  of  dogma,  which  may  be 
traced  from  the  council  of  Jerusalem  to  the  council  of 
Trent,  there  had  been  developed,  out  of  the  original  and 
natural  attachment  to  the  teaching  of  the  apostles  pre- 
served by  tradition,  the  idea  that  the  Church  is  the  di- 
vinely-appointed guardian  of  doctrine,  able  to  supplement 
as  well  as  to  interpret  the  revealed  word  :  and  with  this, 
there  had  also  grown  up  the  habit  of  exalting  the  universal 
conscience  and  belief  above  the  individual,  and  allowing 
the  soul  to  approach  God  only  through  the  universal  con- 
sciousness, represented  by  the  sacerdotal  order  :  principles  Mediaeval 
still  maintained  by  one  branch  of  the  Christian  Church,  Theology 


and  for  some  at  least  of  which  reasons  could  be  assigned  "?££" 
then,  in  the  paucity  of  written  records  and  the  blind  ig-  catholic 
norance  of  the  mass  of  the  people,  weightier  than  those  Church. 
on  which  stress  has  in  later  days  been  laid. 

There  was  also  another  cause  yet  more  deeply  seated, 
and  which  it  is  hard  adequately  to  describe.  It  was  not 
exactly  a  want  of  faith  in  the  unseen,  nor  a  shrinking  fear 
which  dared  not  look  forth  on  the  universe  alone  :  it  was 
rather  the  powerlessness  of  the  untrained  mind  to  realize 
the  idea  as  an  idea  and  live  in  it  :  it  was  the  tendency  to 
see  everything  in  the  concrete,  to  turn  the  parable  into  a 
fact,  the  doctrine  into  its  most  literal  application,  the 
symbol  into  the  essential  ceremony  ;  the  tendency  which 
interposed  the  Virgin  Mother  and  the  saints  between  the 
worshipper  and  the  spiritual  Deity,  and  could  satisfy  its 
devotional  feelings  only  by  visible  images  even  of  these; 
which  conceived  of  man's  aspirations  and  temptations  as 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  vii.  the  result  of  the  direct  action  of  angels  and  devils ;  which 
expressed  the  strivings  of  the  soul  after  purity  by  the 
search  for  the  Holy  Grail ;  which  in  the  Crusades  sent 
myriads  to  win  at  Jerusalem  by  earthly  arms  the  sepulchre 
of  Him  whom  they  found  it  hard  to  serve  in  their  own 
spirit  and  approach  by  their  own  prayers.  And  therefore 
it  was  that  the  whole  fabric  of  mediaeval  Christianity 
rested  upon  the  idea  of  the  Visible  Church.  Such  a 
Church  could  be  in  nowise  local  or  limited.  To  acquiesce 
in  the  establishment  of  National  Churches,  independent 
and  self-sufficing,  would  have  appeared  to  those  men,  as 
it  must  always  appear  when  scrutinized,  opposed  to  the 
genius  of  Christianity  as  a  religion  meant  for  all  mankind, 
defensible,  when  capable  of  defence  at  all,  only  as  a  tem- 
porary resource  in  the  presence  of  insuperable  difficulties. 
Had  this  plan,  on  which  so  many  have  dwelt  with  compla- 
cency in  later  times,  been  proposed  either  to  the  primitive 
Church  in  its  adversity  or  to  the  dominant  Church  of  the 
ninth  century,  it  would  have  been  rejected  with  horror. 
But  since  there  were  as  yet  no  nations,  the  plan  was  one 
which  did  not  and  could  not  present  itself.  The  Visible 
Church  was  therefore  the  Church  Universal,  the  whole 
congregation  of  Christian  men  dispersed  throughout  the 
world,  the  Church  held  together  by  one  hope,  one  faith, 
one  baptism.1 

idea  of  Now  of  the  Visible  Church  the  emblem  and  stay  was 

^ohhcai         tne  priesthood  ;  and  it  was  by  them,  in  whom  dwelt  what- 

umty  upheld  r  ' 

by  the  clergy,  ever  of  learning  and  thought  was  left  in  Europe,  that  the 
second  great  idea  whereof  mention  has  been  made — the 
belief  in  one  universal  temporal  state  —  was  preserved.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  that  state  had  perished  out  of  the  West, 
and  it  might  seem  their  interest  to  let  its  memory  be  lost. 
They,  however,  did  not  so  calculate  their  interest.  So  far 

J  Eph.  iv.  4-6. 


THEORY  OF   THE   MEDIAEVAL  EMPIRE  97 

from  feeling  themselves  opposed  to  the  civil  authority  in  CHAP.  vn. 
the  seventh  and  eighth  centuries,  as  many  of  them  came 
to  do  in  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth,  the  clergy  were  fully 
persuaded  that  its  maintenance  was  indispensable  to  their 
own  welfare,  and  to  that  of  the  whole  Christian  common- 
wealth. They  were,  be  it  remembered,  at  first  Romans 
themselves,  living  by  the  Roman  law,  using  Latin  as  their 
proper  tongue,  and  imbued  with  the  idea  of  the  historical 
connection  of  the  two  powers.  And  by  them  chiefly  was 
that  idea  expounded  and  enforced  for  many  generations, 
by  none  more  earnestly  than  by  Alcuin  of  York,  the  ad- 
viser of  Charles.*  The  limits  of  those  two  powers  had 
become  confounded  in  practice :  bishops  were  princes,  the 
chief  ministers  of  the  sovereign,  sometimes  even  the  leaders 
of  their  flocks  in  war :  kings  were  accustomed  to  summon 
ecclesiastical  councils  and  appoint  to  ecclesiastical  offices. 

But,  like  the  unity  of  the  Church,  the  doctrine  of  a  influence  of 
universal  monarchy  had  a  theoretical  as  well  as  an  his-  *Aemeta- 

11-  11  i  1-1    Physics  of  the 

toncal  basis,  and  may  be  traced  up  to  those  metaphysical  time  upon  t/u 
ideas  out  of  which  the  system  we  call  Realism  developed  theory  of  a 
itself.  The  beginnings  of  philosophy  in  those  times  were 
logical ;  and  its  first  efforts  were  to  distribute  and  classify  : 
system,  subordination,  uniformity,  appeared  to  be  that 
which  was  most  desirable  in  thought  as  in  life.  The  search 
after  causes  became  a  search  after  principles  of  classification, 
since  simplicity  and  truth  were  held  to  be  attainable  not  by 
an  analysis  of  thought  into  its  elements,  nor  by  an  obser- 
vation of  the  process  of  its  growth,  but  rather  through  a 
sort  of  genealogy  of  notions,  a  statement  of  the  relations  of 

k  '  Quapropter  universorum  precibus  fidelium  optandum  est,  ut  in  omnem 
gloriam  vestram  extendatur  imperium,  ut  scilicet  catholica  fides  .  .  .  veraciter 
in  una  confessione  cunctorum  cordibus  infigatur,  quatenus  summi  Regis  do- 
nante  pietate  eadem  sanctae  pacis  et  perfectae  caritatis  omnes  ubique  regat  et 
custodial  unitas.'  —  Quoted  by  Waitz  (Deutsche  Verfassungsgeschichteti\.  182) 
from  an  unprinted  letter  of  Alcuin. 
H 


98  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  viz.  classes  as  containing  or  excluding  each  other.  These 
classes,  genera,  or  species,  were  not  themselves  held  to  be 
conceptions  formed  by  the  mind  from  phenomena,  nor  mere 
fortuitous  aggregates  of  objects  grouped  under  and  called 
by  some  common  name ;  they  were  real  things,  existing 
independently  of  the  individuals  who  composed  them, 
recognized  rather  than  created  by  the  human  mind.  In 
this  view,  Humanity  is  an  essential  quality  present  in  all 
men,  and  making  them  what  they  are  :  as  regards  it  they 
are  therefore  not  many  but  one,  the  differences  between 
individuals  being  no  more  than  accidents.  The  whole 
truth  of  their  being  lies  in  the  universal  property,  which 
alone  has  a  permanent  and  independent  existence.  The 
common  nature  of  the  individuals  thus  gathered  into  one 
Being  is  typified  in  its  two  aspects,  the  spiritual  and  the 
secular,  by  two  persons,  the  World-Priest  and  the  World- 
Monarch,  who  present  on  earth  a  similitude  of  the  Divine 
unity.  For,  as  we  have  seen,  it  was  through  its  concrete 
and  symbolic  expression  that  a  thought  could  then  be  best 
apprehended.1 

Although  it  was  primarily  to  unity  in  religion  that  the 
clerical  body  was  both  by  doctrine  and  by  practice  attached, 

1  A  curious  illustration  of  this  tendency  of  mind  is  afforded  by  the  descrip- 
tions we  meet  with  of  Learning  or  Theology  (Studium)  as  a  concrete  exist- 
ence, having  a  visible  dwelling  in  the  University  of  Paris.  The  three  great 
powers  which  rule  human  life,  says  one  writer,  the  Popedom,  the  Empire, 
and  Learning,  have  been  severally  entrusted  to  the  three  foremost  nations 
of  Europe  :  Italians,  Germans,  French.  '  His  siquidem  tribus,  scilicet  sacer- 
dotio  imperio  et  studio,  tanquam  tribus  virtutibus,  videlicet  naturali  vitali  et 
scientiali,  catholica  ecclesia  spiritualiter  mirificatur,  augmentatur  et  regitur. 
His  itaque  tribus,  tanquam  fundamento  pariete  et  tecto,  eadem  ecclesia  tan- 
quam materialiter  proficit.  Et  sicut  ecclesia  materialis  uno  tantum  funda- 
mento et  uno  tecto  eget,  parietibus  vero  quatuor,  ita  imperium  quatuor  habet 
parietes,  hoc  est,  quatuor  imperil  sedes,  Aquisgranum,  Arelatum,  Medio- 
lanum,  Romam.'  —  lordanis  Chronica ;  in  Schardius,  Sylloge  Tractatuum. 
And  see  Dollinger,  Die  Vergangenheit  und  Gegenwart  der  katholisrhen  The- 
ologie,  p.  8. 


THEORY   OF   THE   MEDIAEVAL   EMPIRE  99 

they  found  this  inseparable  from  the  corresponding  unity  CHAP.  vn. 
in  politics.  They  saw  that  every  act  of  man  has  a  social 
and  public  as  well  as  a  moral  and  personal  bearing,  and 
concluded  that  the  rules  which  directed  and  the  powers 
which  rewarded  or  punished  must  be  parallel  and  similar, 
not  so  much  two  powers  as  different  manifestations  of  one 
and  the  same.  That  the  souls  of  all  Christian  men  should 
be  guided  by  a  well  compacted  hierarchy,  rising  through 
successive  grades  to  one  supreme  head,  while  for  their 
deeds  they  were  answerable  to  a  multitude  of  local,  uncon- 
nected, mutually  irresponsible  potentates,  appeared  to 
them  necessarily  opposed  to  the  Divine  order.  As  they 
could  not  imagine,  nor  value  if  they  had  imagined,  a  com- 
munion of  the  saints  without  its  expression  in  a  Visible 
Church,  so  in  matters  temporal  they  recognized  no  brother- 
hood of  spirit  without  the  bonds  of  form,  no  universal 
humanity  save  in  the  image  of  a  universal  State."1  In  this, 
as  in  so  much  else,  the  men  of  the  Middle  Ages  were  the 
slaves  of  the  letter,  unable,  with  all  their  aspirations,  to  rise 
above  the  concrete,  and  prevented  by  the  very  grandeur 
and  boldness  of  their  conceptions  from  carrying  them  out 
in  practice  against  the  enormous  obstacles  that  met  them. 
Deep  as  this  belief  had  struck  its  roots,  it  might  never 
have  risen  to  maturity  nor  sensibly  affected  the  progress 
of  events,  had  it  not  gained  in  the  pre-existence  of  the 

m  '  Una  est  sola  respublica  totius  populi  Christian!,  ergo  de  necessitate 
erit  et  unus  solus  princeps  et  rex  illius  reipublicae,  statutus  et  stabilitus  ad 
ipsius  fidei  et  populi  Christiani  dilatationem  et  defensionem.  Ex  qua  ratione 
concludit  etiam  Augustinus  (De  Civilate  Dei,  lib.  xix.)  quod  extra  ecclesiam 
nunquam  fuit  nee  potuit  nee  poterit  esse  verum  imperium,  etsi  fuerint  im- 
peratores  qualitercumque  et  secundum  quid,  non  simpliciter,  qui  fuerunt  extra 
fidem  Catholicam  et  ecclesiam.' —  Engelbert  (abbot  of  Admont  in  Upper 
Austria),  De  Ortu  Progressu  el  Fine  Imperil  Romani  (circa  I3IO)»  aP-  Go1' 
dast,  Politica  imperii,  p.  754. 

In  this  '  de  necessitate '  everything  is  included. 


100 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  VII. 

The  ideal 
State  sup- 
posed to  be 
embodied  in 
the  Roman 
Empire. 


Constantint's 
Donation. 


monarchy  of  Rome  a  definite  shape  and  a  definite  purpose. 
It  was  chiefly  by  means  of  the  Papacy  that  this  came  to 
pass  at  the  end  of  and  after  the  second  century.  The 
Roman  Church  had  already  begun  to  be  regarded  in  the 
West  as  a  specially  trustworthy  guardian  of  Christian 
doctrine.  The  pre-eminence  of  the  City  had  given  to  the 
Roman  bishop  a  position  of  influence  and  authority  great 
even  in  the  days  of  Irenaeus  :  and  when,  under  Constantine, 
the  Christian  Church  was  strengthening  her  organization 
on  the  model  of  the  State  which  thenceforth  protected  her, 
the  bishop  of  the  capital  perceived  and  improved  the 
analogy  between  himself  and  the  head  of  the  civil  govern- 
ment. The  notion  that  the  chair  of  Peter  was  the  imperial 
throne  of  the  Church  had  dawned  upon  the  Popes  very 
early  in  their  history,  and  grew  stronger  every  century 
under  the  operation  of  causes  already  specified.  Even 
before  the  Empire  had  fallen  in  the  West,  St.  Leo  the 
Great  could  boast  that  to  Rome,  exalted  by  the  preaching 
of  the  chief  of  the  Apostles  to  be  a  holy  nation,  a  chosen 
people,  a  priestly  and  royal  city,  there  had  been  appointed 
a  spiritual  dominion  wider  than  her  earthly  sway.n  In 
A.D.  476  Rome  ceased  to  be  the  political  capital  of  the 
Western  countries,  and  the  Papacy,  inheriting  no  small 
part  of  the  local  authority  which  had  belonged  to  the 
Emperor's  officers,  drew  to  herself  the  reverence  which 
the  name  of  the  city  still  commanded,  until,  in  the  days 
which  followed  her  emancipation  from  the  control  of  the 
Emperors  at  Constantinople,  she  had  perfected  in  theory  a 
scheme  which  made  her  the  exact  counterpart  of  the 
departed  despotism,  the  centre  of  the  hierarchy,  absolute 
mistress  of  the  Christian  world.  The  character  of  that 
scheme  is  best  set  forth  in  the  singular  document,  most 
stupendous  of  all  the  mediaeval  forgeries,  which  under  the 
n  See  note  8,  p.  31. 


THEORY  OF   THE  MEDIAEVAL   EMPIRE  ioi 

name  of  the  Donation  of  Constantine  commanded  for  CHAP.VII. 
seven  centuries  the  almost  unquestioning  belief  of  man- 
kind.0 Itself  a  portentous  fabrication,  it  is  unimpeachable 
evidence  of  the  thoughts  and  beliefs  of  the  priesthood 
which  framed  it,  some  time  between  the  middle  of  the 
eighth  and  the  end  of  the  ninth  century.  It  tells  how 
Constantine  the  Great,  cured  of  his  leprosy  by  the  prayers 
of  Pope  Sylvester,  resolved,  on  the  fourth  day  from  his 
baptism,  to  forsake  the  ancient  seat  for  a  new  capital  on  the 
Bosphorus,  lest  the  continuance  of  the  secular  government 
should  cramp  the  freedom  of  the  spiritual,  and  how  he 
bestowed  therewith  upon  the  Pope  and  his  successors  the 
sovereignty  over  Italy  and  the  countries  of  the  West.  But 
this  is  not  all,  although  this  is  what  historians,  in  admira- 
tion of  its  splendid  audacity,  have  chiefly  dwelt  upon. 
The  edict  proceeds  to  grant  to  the  Roman  pontiff  and  his 
clergy  a  series  of  dignities  and  privileges,  all  of  them 
enjoyed  by  the  Emperor  and  his  senate,  all  of  them  show- 
ing the  same  desire  to  make  the  pontifical  a  copy  of  the 
imperial  office.  The  Pope  is  to  inhabit  the  Lateran  palace, 
to  wear  the  diadem,  the  collar,  the  purple  cloak,  to  carry 
the  sceptre,  and  to  be  attended  by  a  body  of  chamberlains. 
Similarly  his  clergy  are  to  ride  on  white  horses  and  receive 
the  honours  and  immunities  of  the  senate  and  patricians.p 

The  notion  which  prevails  throughout,  that  the  chief  of  interdepe*- 
the  religious  society  must  be  in  every  point  conformed  to  *£"  '/^ 
his  prototype  the  chief  of  the  civil,  is  the  key  to  all  the 
thoughts  and  acts  of  the  Roman  clergy,  not  less  plainly 
seen  in  the  details  of  papal  ceremonial  than  it  is  in  the 
gigantic  scheme  of  papal  legislation.  The  Canon  law 
which  the  Roman  Curia  began  to  build  up  after  Pope 

0  See  p.  43,  ante :  and  cf.  Aegidi,  Der  FUrstenrath.  nach  dem  Luneviller 
Frieden. 

P  See  as  to  the  Donation  Note  IV  at  end  of  this  volume. 


IO2 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  VII. 


The  Roman 
Empire  re- 
vived in  a 
new 
character. 


Hadrian  I,  and  which  rose  apace  in  the  eleventh  and 
twelfth  centuries,  with  the  enlarged  activity  and  growing 
claims  of  the  Papacy,  was  intended  by  its  authors  to  repro- 
duce and  rival  the  imperial  jurisprudence.  In  the  middle 
of  the  thirteenth  century  Gregory  IX,  who  was  the  first 
to  consolidate  it  into  a  code,  sought  the  fame  and  received 
the  title  of  the  Justinian  of  the  Church,  and  a  correspon- 
dence was  traced  between  its  divisions  and  those  of  the 
Corpus  luris  Civilis.  But  during  the  earlier  period  the 
wish  and  purpose  of  the  clergy,  even  when  the  temporal 
power  was  weak  or  hostile,  was  to  imitate  and  rival,  not 
to  supersede  it,  since  they  held  it  the  necessary  comple- 
ment of  their  own,  and  thought  the  Christian  people 
equally  imperilled  by  the  fall  of  either.  Hence  the  reluc- 
tance of  Gregory  II  to  break  with  the  East  Roman  princes, 
and  the  maintenance  of  their  titular  sovereignty  till  A.D. 
800 :  hence  the  part  which  the  Holy  See  played  in  trans- 
ferring the  crown  to  Charles,  the  first  sovereign  of  the 
West  capable  of  fulfilling  its  duties  ;  hence  the  grief  with 
which  its  weakness  under  his  successors  was  seen,  the 
gladness  when  it  descended  to  Otto  as  representative  of 
the  Prankish  kingdom. 

Up  to  the  era  of  A.D.  800  there  had  been  at  Constanti- 
nople a  legitimate  historical  prolongation  of  the  Roman 
Empire.  Technically,  as  we  have  seen,  the  election  of 
Charles,  after  the  deposition  of  Constantine  VI,  was  itself 
a  prolongation,  and  maintained  the  old  rights  and  forms 
in  their  integrity.  But  the  Pope,  though  he  knew  it  not, 
did  far  more  than  effect  a  change  of  dynasty  when  he 
rejected  Irene  and  crowned  the  barbarian  chief.  Restora 
tions  are  always  delusive.  As  well  might  one  hope  to 
stop  the  earth's  course  in  her  orbit  as  to  arrest  that  cease- 
less change  and  movement  in  human  affairs  which  forbids 
an  old  institution,  suddenly  transplanted  into  a  new  order 


THEORY   OF   THE  MEDIAEVAL  EMPIRE  103 

of  things,  from  filling  its  ancient  place  and  serving  its  CHAP.  vn. 
former  ends.  The  dictatorship  at  Rome  in  the  second 
Punic  war  was  not  more  unlike  the  dictatorships  of  Sulla 
and  Caesar,  nor  the  States-general  of  Louis  XIII  to  the 
assembly  which  his  unhappy  descendant  convoked  in  1789, 
than  was  the  imperial  office  of  Theodosius  to  that  of 
Charles  the  Frank  ;  and  the  seal,  ascribed  to  A.D.  800, 
which  bears  the  legend  '  Renovatio  Romani  Imperii,'  q  ex- 
presses, more  justly  perhaps  than  was  intended  by  its 
author,  a  second  birth  of  the  Roman  Empire. 

It  is  not,  however,  from  the  days  of  the  later  Caro- 
lingians  that  a  proper  view  of  this  new  creation  can  be 
formed.  That  period  was  one  of  transition,  of  fluctuation 
and  uncertainty,  in  which  the  office,  passing  from  one 
dynasty  and  country  to  another,  had  not  time  to  acquire  a 
settled  character  and  claims,  and  was  without  the  power 
that  would  have  enabled  it  to  support  them.  From  the 
coronation  of  Otto  the  Great  a  new  period  begins,  in  which 
the  ideas  that  have  been  described  as  floating  in  men's 
minds  took  clearer  shape,  and  attached  to  the  imperial 
title  a  body  of  definite  rights  and  definite  duties.  It  is 
this  latter  phase,  the  Holy  Empire,  that  we  have  now  to 
consider. 

The  realistic  philosophy,  and  the  needs  of  a  time  when  Positioned 
the  only  notion  of  civil  or  religious  order  was  submission 
to  authority,  required  the  World-State  to  be  a  monarchy  : 

"  Of  this  curious  seal,  a  leaden  one,  preserved  at  Paris,  a  figure  is  given 
upon  the  cover  of  this  volume.  There  are  few  monuments  of  that  age  whose 
genuineness  can  be  considered  altogether  beyond  doubt;  but  this  seal  has 
many  respectable  authorities  in  its  favour.  See,  among  others,  Le  Blanc, 
Dissertation  historique  sur  quelques  monnoies  de  Charlemagne,  Paris,  1689; 
J.  M.  Heineccius,  De  veteribus  Germanorum  aliarumque  nationum  sigillis, 
Lips.  1 709 ;  Anastasius,  Vitae  Pontificum  Romanorum,  ed.  Vignoli,  Romae, 
1752;  Gotz,  Deutschlands  Kayser-Munzen  des  Mittelalters,  Dresden,  1827; 
and  the  authorities  cited  by  Waitz,  Deutsche  Verfassungsgeschichte,  iii.  179, 
n.  4. 


104  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  vii.  tradition,  as  well  as  the  continued  existence  of  a  part  of 
the  ancient  institutions,  gave  the  monarch  the  name  of  Ro- 
man Emperor.  A  king  could  not  be  universal  sovereign, 
for  there  were  many  kings :  the  Emperor  must  be  univer- 
sal, for  there  had  never  been  but  one  Emperor ;  he  had  in 
older  and  brighter  days  been  the  actual  lord  of  the  civilized 
world  ;  the  seat  of  his  power  was  placed  beside  that  of  the 
spiritual  autocrat  of  Christendom/  His  functions  will  be 
seen  most  clearly  if  we  deduce  them  from  the  leading  prin- 
ciple of  mediaeval  mythology,  the  exact  correspondence 
of  earth  and  heaven.  As  God,  in  the  midst  of  the  celes- 
tial hierarchy,  rules  blessed  spirits  in  Paradise,  so  the 
Pope,  His  vicar,  raised  above  priests,  bishops,  metropoli- 
tans, reigns  over  the  souls  of  mortal  men  below.  But  as 
God  is  Lord  of  earth  as  well  as  of  heaven,  so  must  he  (the 
Imperator  coelestis 8)  be  represented  by  a  second  earthly 
viceroy,  the  Emperor  {Imperator  terrenus\  whose  authority 
shall  be  of  and  for  this  present  life.  And  as  in  this  present 
world  the  soul  cannot  act  save  through  the  body,  while  yet 
the  body  is  no  more  than  an  instrument  and  means  for  the 
soul's  manifestation,  so  must  there  be  a  rule  and  care  of 
men's  bodies  as  well  as  of  their  souls,  yet  subordinated 
always  to  the  well-being  of  that  element  which  is  the 

r  '  Praeterea  mirari  se  dilecta  fraternitas  tua  quod  non  Francorum  set 
Romanorum  imperatores  nos  appellemus;  set  scire  te  convenit  quia  nisi  Ro- 
manorum  imperatores  essemus,  utique  nee  Francorum.  A  Romanis  enim  hoc 
nomen  et  dignitatem  assumpsimus,  apud  quos  profecto  primum  tantae  culmen 
sublimitatis  effulsit,'  &c.  —  Letter  of  the  Emperor  Lewis  II  to  Basil  the  Em- 
peror at  Constantinople,  from  Chron.  Salernit.,  ap.  Pertz,  M,  H.  G.,  Script, 
iii.  p.  523  (c.  106). 

•  '  Illam  (sc.  Romanan  ecclesiam)  solus  ille  fundavit,  et  super  petram  fidei 
mox  nascentis  erexit,  qui  beato  aeternae  vitae  clavigero  terreni  simul  et  coe- 
lestis imperii  iura  commisit.'  —  Pope  Nicholas  II,  A.D.  1060,  in  Corpus  luris 
Canonici,  Dist.  xxii.  c.  I.  The  expression  is  not  uncommon  in  mediaeval 
writers.  So  'unum  est  imperium  Patris  et  Filii  et  Spiritus  Sancti,  cuius  est 
pars  ecclesia  constituta  in  terris,'  in  Lewis  II's  letter. 


THEORY   OF  THE   MEDIAEVAL   EMPIRE  105 

purer  and  the  more  enduring.  It  is  under  the  emblem  of  CHAP.  VIL 
soul  and  body  that  the  relation  of  the  papal  and  imperial 
power  is  presented  to  us  throughout  the  Middle  Ages.1 
The  Pope,  as  God's  vicar  in  matters  spiritual,  is  to  lead 
men  to  eternal  life ;  the  Emperor,  as  vicar  in  matters  tem- 
poral, must  so  control  them  in  their  dealings  with  one  an- 
other that  they  may  be  able  to  pursue  undisturbed  the 
spiritual  life,  and  thereby  attain  the  same  supreme  and 
common  end  of  everlasting  happiness.  In  the  view  of  this 
object  his  chief  duty  is  to  maintain  peace  in  the  world, 
while  towards  the  Church  his  position  is  that  of  Advocate 
or  Patron,  a  title  borrowed  from  the  practice  adopted  by 
churches  and  monasteries  of  choosing  some  powerful  baron 
to  protect  their  lands  and  lead  their  tenants  in  war.u  The 
functions  of  Advocacy  are  twofold  :  at  home  to  make  the 
Christian  people  obedient  to  the  priesthood,  and  to  execute 
priestly  decrees  upon  heretics  and  sinners ;  abroad  to 
propagate  the  faith  among  the  heathen,  not  sparing  to  use 

* '  Merito  summus  Pontifex  Romanus  episcopus  dici  potest  rex  et  sacerdos. 
Si  enim  dominus  noster  lesus  Christus  sic  appellatur,  non  videtur  incongruum 
suum  vocare  successorem.  Corporale  et  temporale  ex  spirituali  et  perpetuo 
dependet,  sicut  corporis  operatic  ex  virtute  animae.  Sicut  ergo  corpus  per 
animam  habet  esse  virtutem  et  operationem,  ita  et  temporalis  iurisdictio  prin- 
cipum  per  spiritualem  Petri  et  successorum  eius.'  —  St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  De 
Regimine  Principum, 

u  '  Nonne  Romana  ecclesia  tenetur  imperatori  tanquam  suo  patrono,  et 
imperator  ecclesiam  fovere  et  defensare  tanquam  suus  vere  patronus?  certe 
sic.  .  .  .  Patronis  vero  concessum  est  ut  praelatos  in  ecclesiis  sui  patronatus 
eligant.  Cum  ergo  imperator  onus  sentiat  patronatus,  ut  qui  tenetur  earn  de- 
fendere,  sentire  debet  honorem  et  emolumentum.'  I  quote  this  from  a  curi- 
ous document,  a  pamphlet  called  forth  by  the  great  schism  of  A.D.  1378,  in 
Goldast's  collection  of  tracts  {Monarchia  Imperii,  vol.  i.  p.  229),  entitled 
'  Letter  of  the  four  Universities,  Paris,  Oxford,  Prague,  and  the  "  Romana 
generalitas,"  to  the  Emperor  IVenzel  and  Pope  Urban,'  A.D.  1380.  The  title 
or  description  is  obviously  untrue,  but  the  document  has  all  the  appearance 
of  being  practically  contemporary.  It  is  therefore  available  as  evidence  of 
the  ideas  which  filled  men's  minds. 


106  THE   HOLY  ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  vii.     carnal  weapons.1    Thus  does  the  Emperor  answer  in  every 

point  to  his  antitype  the  Pope,  his  power  being  yet  of  a 

lower  rank,  created  on  the  analogy  of  the  papal,  as  the 

papal  itself   had  been  modelled   after  the  elder  Empire. 

The  parallel  holds  good  even  in  its  details  ;  for  just  as  we 

have  seen  the  churchman  assuming  the  crown  and  robes 

of  the  secular  prince,  so  now  did  he  array  the  Emperor  in 

his  own  ecclesiastical  vestments,  the  stole  and  the  dalmatic, 

corre-  gave  him  a  clerical  as  well  as  a  sacred  character,  removed 

spondence        ^{s   office    from    all    narrowing  associations   of    birth    or 

and  harmony  .  ,    .  .        ,          .  r       ,  .    . 

of  the  spirit-  country,  inaugurated  him  by  rites  every  one  of  which  was 
uaiand  meant  to  symbolize  and  enjoin  duties  in  their  essence 
temporal  religious.  Thus  the  Holy  Roman  Church  and  the  Holy 
Roman  Empire  are  one  and  the  same  thing,  seen  from 
different  sides  ;  and  Catholicism,  the  principle  of  the  uni- 
versal Christian  society,  is  also  Romanism  ;  that  is,  rests 
upon  Rome  as  the  origin  and  type  of  its  universality ; 
manifesting  itself  in  a  mystic  dualism  which  corresponds 
to  the  two  natures  of  its  Founder.  As  divine  and  eternal, 
its  head  is  the  Pope,  to  whom  souls  have  been  entrusted  ; 
as  human  and  temporal,  the  Emperor,  commissioned  to 
rule  men's  bodies  and  acts. 

In  nature  and  compass  the  government  of  these  two 
potentates  is  the  same,  differing  only  in  the  sphere  of  its 

1  So  Leo  III  in  a  charter  issued  on  the  day  of  Charles's  coronation :  ' .  .  . 
actum  in  praesentia  gloriosi  atque  excellentissimi  filii  nostri  Caroli  quem 
auctore  Deo  in  defensionem  et  provectionem  sanctae  universalis  ecclesiae 
hodie  Augustum  sacravimus.'  —  Jaffe,  Regesta  Pontificum  Romanorum,  ad 
ann.  800. 

So,  indeed,  Theodulf  of  Orleans,  a  contemporary  of  Charles,  ascribes  to 
the  Emperor  an  almost  papal  authority  over  the  Church  itself  :  — 

'  Coeli  habet  hie  (sc.  Papa)  claves,  proprias  te  iussit  habere  ; 

Tu  regis  ecclesiae,  nam  regit  ille  poli  ; 
Tu  regis  eius  opes,  clerum  populumque  gubernas, 
Hie  te  coelicolas  ducet  ad  usque  chores.' 

—  In  D.  Bouquet,  v.  415. 


THEORY   OF  THE  MEDIAEVAL   EMPIRE  107 

working ;  and  it  matters  little  whether  we  call  the  Pope  CHAP.  VII. 
a  spiritual  Emperor  or  the  Emperor  a  secular  Pope.  Nor, 
though  the  one  office  is  below  the  other  as  far  as  man's 
life  on  earth  is  less  precious  than  his  life  hereafter,  is 
therefore,  on  the  older  and  sounder  theory,  the  imperial 
authority  delegated  by  the  papal.  For,  as  has  been  said 
already,  God  is  represented  by  the  Pope  not  in  every  ca- 
pacity, but  only  as  the  ruler  of  spirits  in  heaven  :  as  sov- 
ereign of  earth,  He  issues  His  commission  directly  to  the 
Emperor.  Opposition  between  two  servants  of  the  same 
King  is  inconceivable,  each  being  bound  to  aid  and  foster 
the  other,  the  co-operation  of  both  being  needed  in  all  that 
concerns  the  welfare  of  Christendom  at  large.  This  is 
the  one  perfect  and  self-consistent  scheme  of  the  union  of  union  of 
Church  and  State ;  for,  taking  the  absolute  coincidence  Church  and 
of  their  limits  to  be  self-evident,  it  assumes  the  infalli- 
bility of  their  joint  government,  and  derives,  as  a  corollary 
from  that  infallibility,  the  duty  of  the  civil  magistrate  to 
root  out  heresy  and  schism  no  less  than  to  punish  treason 
and  rebellion.  It  is  also  the  scheme  which,  granting  the 
possibility  of  their  harmonious  action,  places  the  two  powers 
in  that  relation  which  gives  to  each  of  them  its  maximum 
of  strength.  But  by  a  law  to  which  it  would  be  hard  to 
find  exceptions,  in  proportion  as  the  State  became  more 
Christian,  the  Church,  who  to  work  out  her  purposes  had 
assumed  worldly  forms,  became  by  the  contact  worldlier, 
meaner,  spiritually  weaker  ;  and  the  system  whose  founda- 
tions were  joyfully  laid  in  the  days  of  Constantine,  and 
which  culminated  triumphantly  in  the  Empire  Church  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  has  in  each  succeeding  generation  been 
slowly  losing  ground,  has  seen  its  brightness  dimmed  and 
its  completeness  marred,  and  sees  now  those  who  are  most 
zealous  on  behalf  of  its  surviving  institutions  feebly  defend 
or  silently  desert  the  principle  upon  which  all  must  rest. 


108  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  vil.  The  complete  accord  of  the  papal  and  imperial  powers 
which  this  theory,  as  sublime  as  it  is  impracticable,  re- 
quires, was  attained  only  at  a  few  points  in  their  history.7 
It  was  finally  supplanted  by  another  view  of  their  relation, 
which,  professing  to  be  a  developement  of  a  principle  rec- 
ognized as  fundamental,  the  superior  importance  of  the 
religious  life,  found  increasing  favour  in  the  eyes  of  fervent 
churchmen.2  Declaring  the  Pope  sole  representative  on 
earth  of  the  Deity,  it  concluded  that  from  him,  and  not 
directly  from  God,  must  the  Empire  be  held  —  held  feu- 
dally, it  was  said  by  many  —  and  it  thereby  thrust  down  the 
temporal  power  to  be  the  servant  instead  of  the  sister  of 
the  spiritual."1  Nevertheless,  the  Papacy  in  her  meridian, 
and  under  the  guidance  of  her  greatest  minds,  of  Hilde- 
brand,  of  Alexander  II,  of  Innocent  III,  not  seeking  to 

y  Perhaps  at  no  more  than  three :  in  the  time  of  Charles  and  Leo  III  ; 
again  under  Otto  III  and  his  two  Popes  Gregory  V  and  Sylvester  II  ;  thirdly, 
under  Henry  III  ;  certainly  never  thenceforth. 

z  The  Sachsenspiegel  (Speculum  Saxonicum,  circ.  A.D.  1240),  the  great 
North-German  law  book,  says,  'The  Empire  is  held  from  God  alone,  not 
from  the  Pope.  Emperor  and  Pope  are  supreme  each  in  what  has  been 
entrusted  to  him :  the  Pope  in  what  concerns  the  soul  ;  the  Emperor  in  all 
that  belongs  to  the  body  and  to  knighthood.'  The  Schwabenspiegel,  compiled 
half  a  century  later,  subordinates  the  prince  to  the  pontiff:  'The  Pope  gives 
the  worldly  sword  of  judgement  to  the  Emperor :  the  spiritual  sword  belongs 
to  the  Pope  that  he  may  judge  therewith.'  '  Daz  weltliche  Schwert  des 
Gerichtes  daz  lihet  der  Babest  dem  Chaiser  ;  daz  geistlich  ist  dem  Babest 
gesetzt  daz  er  damit  richte.' 

B  So  Boniface  VIII  in  the  bull  Unam  Sanctum  (Corp.  lur.  Canon,  Ex' 
trav.  Commun.  i.  8)  will  have  but  one  head  for  the  Christian  people :  '  Igitui 
ecclesiae  unius  et  unicae  unum  corpus,  unum  caput,  non  duo  capita  quasi 
monstrum,  Christus  videlicet  et  Christi  vicarius  Petrus,  Petrique  successor. 
...  In  eius  potestate  duos  esse  gladios,  spiritualem  et  temporalem,  evange- 
licis  dictis  instruimur.  Nam  dicentibus  apostolis  "  Ecce  gladii  duo  hie,"  in 
ecclesia  scilicet,  non  respondit  Dominus  nimis  esse  sed  satis.  .  .  .  Uterque 
gladius,  spiritualis  et  materialis,  est  in  potestate  ecclesiae.  Sed  is  quidem 
pro  ecclesia,  ille  vero  ab  ecclesia  exercendus.  Ille  sacerdotis,  is  m*nu  regura 
et  militum,  sed  ad  nutum  et  patientiam  sacerdotis.' 


THEORY   OF  THE   MEDIAEVAL  EMPIRE  109 

abolish  or  absorb  the  civil  government,  required  only  its  CHAP.  vn. 
obedience,  and  exalted  its  dignity  against  all  save  herself.b 
It  was  reserved  for  Boniface  VIII,  whose  extravagant  pre- 
tensions betrayed  the  decay  that  was  already  at  work 
within,  to  show  himself  to  the  crowding  pilgrims  at  the 
jubilee  of  A.D.  1300,  seated  on  the  throne  of  Constantine, 
arrayed  with  sword,  and  crown,  and  sceptre,  shouting 
aloud,  '  I  am  Caesar  —  I  am  Emperor.'  ° 

The  theory  of  an  Emperor's  place  and  functions  thus  Proofs  from 
sketched  cannot  be  definitely  assigned  to  any  point  of  mediaeval 

.  ,  J  J     r  documents. 

time;  for  it  was  growing  and  changing  from  the  fifth 
century  to  the  fifteenth.  Nor  need  it  surprise  us  that 
we  do  not  find  in  any  one  author  a  full  account  of  the 
grounds  whereon  it  rested,  since  much  of  what  seems 
strangest  to  us  was  then  too  obvious  to  need  statement  or 

b  St.  Bernard  writes  to  Conrad  III :  '  Non  veniat  anima  mea  in  consilium 
eorum  qui  dicunt  vel  imperio  pacem  et  libertatem  ecclesiae  vel  ecclesiae 
prosperitatem  et  exaltationem  imperil  nocituram.'  So  speaking  of  the  papal 
claim  to  temporal  and  spiritual  authority,  he  writes  in  the  De  Consideration*, 
addressed  to  Pope  Eugenius  III :  '  I  ergo  tu  et  tibi  usurpare  aude  aut  domi- 
nans  Apostolatum  aut  Apostolicus  dominatum.  Plane  ab  alterutro  prohiberis. 
Si  utrumque  simul  habere  velis,  perdes  utrumque '  (Bk.  ii.  ch.  6). 

c  Sedens  in  solio  armatus  et  cinctus  ensem,  habensque  in  capite  Constan- 
tini  diadema,  stricto  dextra  capulo  ensis  accincti,  ait :  "  Numquid  ego  summus 
sum  pontifex  ?  nonne  ista  est  cathedra  Petri  ?  Nonne  possum  imperii  iura 
tutari  ?  ego  ego  sum  imperator."  '  —  Fr.  Pipinus  (ap.  Murat.  S,  R.  I.  ix),  L 
iv.  c.  41.  These  words,  however,  are  by  this  writer  ascribed  to  Boniface  when 
receiving  the  envoys  of  the  Emperor  Albert  I,  in  A.D.  1299.  I  have  not  been 
able  to  find  authority  for  their  use  at  the  jubilee,  but  give  the  current  story 
for  what  it  is  worth. 

It  is  possible  that  Dante  may  be  alluding  to  this  sword  scene  in  a  remark- 
able passage  of  the  Purgatorio  (xvi.  1.  106)  :  — 

'  Soleva  Roma,  che  '1  buon  mondo  feo, 

Duo  Soli  aver,  che  1'  una  e  1'  altra  strada 
Facean  vedere,  e  del  mondo  e  di  Deo. 
L'  un  1'  altro  ha  spento,  ed  e  giunta  la  spada 
Col  pastorale :  e  1'  un  coll'  altro  insieme 
Per  viva  forza  mal  convien  che  vada.' 


1 10  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  vii.  explanation.  No  one,  however,  who  examines  mediaeval 
writings  can  fail  to  perceive,  sometimes  from  direct  words, 
oftener  from  allusions  or  assumptions,  that  such  ideas 
as  these  are  present  to  the  minds  of  the  authors.d  That 
which  stands  out  most  clearly  is  the  connection  of  the 
Empire  with  religion.  From  every  record,  from  chronicles 
and  treatises,  proclamations,  laws,  and  sermons,  passages 
may  be  adduced  wherein  the  defence  and  spread  of  the 
faith,  and  the  maintenance  of  concord  among  the  Chris- 
tian people,  are  represented  as  the  function  to  which  the 
Empire  has  been  set  apart.  The  belief  expressed  by  Lewis 
II,  'Imperii  dignitas  non  in  vocabuli  nomine  sed  in  cul- 
mine  pietatis  gloriosae  consistit,'6  appears  again  in  the  ad- 
dress of  the  archbishop  of  Mentz  to  Conrad  II,f  as  Vicar 
of  God ;  is  reiterated  by  Frederick  I,g  when  he  writes  to 
the  prelates  of  Germany,  '  On  earth  God  has  placed  no 
more  than  two  powers,  and  as  there  is  in  heaven  but  one 
God,  so  is  there  here  one  Pope  and  one  Emperor.  Divine 
providence  has  specially  appointed  the  Roman  Empire  to 
prevent  the  continuance  of  schism  in  the  Church ; ' h  is 

d  See  especially  Peter  de  Andlau  {De  Imperio  Romano) ;  Dante  {De 
Monarchic?)  ;  Engelbert  {De  Ortu  Progressu  et  Fine  Imperii  Romani}  ; 
Landolfo  Colonna  {De  translatione  Imperii  Romani)  ;  Marsilius  Patavinus 
{De  translatione  Imperii  Romani)  ;  Aeneas  Sylvius  Piccolomini  {De  Ortu  et 
Authoritate  Imperii  Romani)  ;  Zoannetus  {De  Imperio  Romano  atque  eius 
Iurisdictione~)  ;  and  the  writers  in  Schardius's  Sylloge  Tractatuum,  and  in 
Goldast's  Collection  of  Tracts,  entitled  Monarchia  Imperii. 

e  Letter  of  Lewis  II  to  Basil  the  Macedonian,  in  Chron.  Salernit.  in  Pertz, 
M.  G.  H.,  Script,  iii.  p.  521  (c.  106),  also  given  by  Baronius,  Ann.  Eccl.,  ad 
ann.  871. 

f'Adsummum  dignitatis  pervenisti :  Vicarius  es  Christi.'  —  Wippo,  Vita 
Ckuonradi,  ap.  Pertz,  M.  G.  H.,  Script,  ii.  p.  260  (c.  3). 

*  Letter  in  Radewic  or  Rahewin,  ap.  Pertz,  M.  G.  H.,  Script,  xx.  p.  476  (bk. 
iv.  c.  56). 

h  Lewis  IV  is  styled  in  one  of  his  proclamations,  'Gentis  humanae,  orbis 
Christiani  custos,  urbi  et  orbi  a  Deo  electus  praeesse.'  —  Pfeffinger,  Vitria- 
rius  Illustratus. 


THEORY   OF  THE   MEDIAEVAL   EMPIRE  in 

echoed  by  jurists  and  divines  down  to  the  days  of  Charles  CHAP.  vn. 
V.1  It  was  a  doctrine  which  we  shall  find  the  friends  and 
opponents  of  the  Holy  See  equally  concerned  to  insist  on 
—  the  one  party  to  make  the  transference  (trans latio)  of 
the  imperial  dignity  'from  the  Greeks  to  the  Germans' 
appear  entirely  the  Pope's  work,  and  thereby  to  establish 
his  right  of  overseeing  or  cancelling  the  election  of  an 
Emperor ;  the  others,  by  setting  the  Emperor  at  the  head 
of  the  whole  congregation  of  Christians,  to  reduce  the 
bishop  of  the  capital  to  a  place  in  the  world-realm  similar 
to  that  held  by  the  primate  in  each  of  the  countries  of 
Christendom. J  The  Emperor's  headship  was  deemed  to 
stand  out  and  be  exerciseable  chiefly  in  the  two  duties 
already  noticed.  As  Defender  of  the  Faith  —  the  counter- 
part of  the  Musulman  Commander  of  the  Faithful  —  he 
was  leader  of  the  Church  militant  against  her  infidel  foes, 
was  in  this  capacity  summoned  to  conduct  crusades,  and 
in  later  times  recognized  chief  of  the  confederacies  against 
the  conquering  Ottomans.  As  representative  of  the  whole 
Christian  people,  it  belonged  to  him  to  convoke  General 
Councils,  a  right  not  without  importance  even  when  exer- 
cised concurrently  with  the  Pope,  but  far  more  weighty 
when  the  object  of  the  Council  was  to  settle  a  disputed 
election,  or,  as  at  Constance,  to  depose  reigning  pontiffs 
themselves. 

No   better   illustrations  can  be  desired   than  those  to 

1  In  a  document  issued  by  the  Diet  of  Speyer  (A.D.  1529)  the  Emperor  is 
called  'Oberst  Vogt,  und  Haupt  der  Christenheit.'  Hieronymus  Balbus,  writ- 
ing about  the  same  time,  puts  the  question  whether  all  Christians  are  subject 
to  the  Emperor  in  temporal  things,  as  they  are  to  the  Pope  in  spiritual,  and 
answers  it  by  saying,  '  Cum  ambo  ex  eodem  fonte  perfluxerint  et  eadem  semita 
incedant,  de  utroque  idem  puto  sentiendum.' 

J  '  Non  magis  ad  Papam  depositio  seu  remotio  pertinet  quam  ad  quoslibet 
regum  praelatos,  qui  reges  suos  prout  assolent,  consecrant  et  inungunt.'  — 
Letter  of  Frederick  II  (lib.  i.  c.  3). 


112 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  VII. 
The  coro- 
nation cert- 
monies. 


The  rights 
of  the  Empire 
proved  from 
the  Bible. 


be  found  in  the  Office  for  the  imperial  coronation  at 
Rome,  too  long  to  be  transcribed  here,  but  well  worthy 
of  an  attentive  study.*  The  rites  prescribed  in  it  are 
rites  of  consecration  to  a  religious  office  :  the  Emperor, 
besides  the  sword,  globe,  and  sceptre  of  temporal  power, 
receives  a  ring  as  the  symbol  of  his  faith,  is  ordained  a 
subdeacon,  assists  the  Pope  in  celebrating  mass,  partakes 
as  a  clerical  person  of  the  communion  in  both  kinds,  is 
admitted  a  canon  of  St.  Peter  and  St.  John  Lateran.  The 
oath  to  be  taken  by  an  elector  begins,  '  Ego  N.  volo  regem 
Romanorum  in  Caesarem  promovendum,  temporale  caput 
populo  Christiano  eligere.'  The  Emperor  swears  to  cher- 
ish and  defend  the  Holy  Roman  Church  and  her  bishop : 
the  Pope  prays  after  the  reading  of  the  Gospel,  '  Deus 
qui  ad  praedicandum  aeterni  regni  evangelium  Imperium 
Romanum  praeparasti,1  praetende  famulo  tuo  Imperatori 
nostro  arma  coelestia.'  Among  the  Emperor's  official 
titles  there  occur  these :  '  Head  of  Christendom/  '  De- 
fender and  Advocate  of  the  Christian  Church,'  'Temporal 
Head  of  the  Faithful,'  '  Protector  of  Palestine  and  of  the 
Catholic  Faith.' m 

Very  singular  are  the  reasonings  by  which  the  necessity 
and  divine  right  of  the  Empire  are  proved  out  of  the 
Bible.  The  mediaeval  theory  of  the  relation  of  the 
civil  power  to  the  priestly  was  profoundly  influenced  by 
the  account  in  the  Old  Testament  of  the  Jewish  theoc- 
racy, in  which  the  king,  though  the  institution  of  his 
office  is  described  as  being  a  derogation  from  the  purity 
of  the  older  system,  appears  divinely  chosen  and  com- 

k  Liber  Ceremonialis  Romanus,  lib.  i.  sect.  5 ;  with  which  compare  the 
Coronatio  Romana  of  Henry  VII,  in  Pert/,  M.  G.  ff.,  Legg.  ii.  I,  pp.  528-537, 
and  Muratori's  Dissertation  in  vol.  i.  of  the  Antiqititates  Italiae  Medii  Aevi. 

1  See,  for  another  prayer,  Note  VIII  at  end. 

m  See  Goldast,  Collection  of  Imperial  Constitutions;  and  Moser,  Komiscke 
Kayser. 


THEORY   OF   THE   MEDIAEVAL   EMPIRE  113 

missioned,  and  stood  in  a  peculiarly  intimate  relation  CHAP.  VH. 
to  the  national  religion.  From  the  New  Testament  the 
authority  and  eternity  of  Rome  herself  was  established. 
Every  passage  was  seized  on  where  submission  to  the 
powers  that  be  is  enjoined,  every  instance  cited  where 
obedience  had  actually  been  rendered  to  imperial  officials, 
a  special  emphasis  being  laid  on  the  sanction  which 
Christ  Himself  had  given  to  Roman  dominion  by  pacify- 
ing the  world  through  Augustus,  by  being  born  at  the 
time  of  the  taxing,  by  paying  tribute  to  Caesar,  by  saying 
to  Pilate,  'Thou  couldest  have  no  power  at  all  against 
Me  except  it  were  given  thee  from  above.' 

More  attractive  to  the  mystical  spirit  than  these  direct 
arguments  were  those  drawn  from  prophecy,  or  based  on 
the  allegorical  interpretation  of  Scripture.  Very  early  in 
Christian  history  had  the  belief  formed  itself  that  the 
Roman  Empire  —  as  the  fourth  beast  of  Daniel's  vision, 
as  the  iron  legs  and  feet  of  Nebuchadnezzar's  image  — 
was  to  be  the  world's  last  and  universal  kingdom.  From 
Origen  and  Jerome  downwards  it  found  unquestioned 
acceptance,11  and  that  not  unnaturally.  For  no  new 
power  had  arisen  to  extinguish  the  Roman,  as  the  Persian 
monarchy  had  been  blotted  out  by  Alexander,  as  the  realms 
of  his  successors  had  fallen  before  the  conquering  republic 
herself.  Every  Northern  conqueror,  Goth,  Lombard, 
Burgundian,  had  cherished  her  memory  and  preserved  her 
laws  ;  Germany  had  adopted  even  the  name  of  the  Empire 
'  dreadful  and  terrible  and  strong  exceedingly,  and  diverse 
from  all  that  were  before  it.'  To  these  predictions,  and  to 
many  others  from  the  Apocalypse,  were  added  those  which 
in  the  Gospels  and  Epistles  foretold  the  advent  of  Anti- 
christ.11 He  was  to  succeed  the  Roman  dominion,  and 
the  Popes  are  more  than  once  warned  that  by  weakening 

n  See  Note  VII  at  end. 


114  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  vil.  the  Empire  they  are  hastening  the  coming  of  the  enemy 
and  the  end  of  the  world.  It  is  not  only  when  groping  in 
the  dark  labyrinths  of  prophecy  that  mediaeval  authors  are 
quick  in  detecting  emblems,  imaginative  in  explaining 
them.  Men  were  wont  in  those  days  to  interpret  Scripture 
in  a  singular  fashion.  As  it  did  not  occur  to  them  to  ask 
what  meaning  words  had  to  those  to  whom  they  were 
originally  addressed,  so  they  were  quite  as  careless  whether 
the  sense  they  discovered  was  one  which  the  language 
used  would  primarily  and  naturally  bear  to  any  reader  at 
any  time.  No  analogy  was  too  faint,  no  allegory  too 
fanciful,  to  be  drawn  out  of  a  simple  text ;  and,  once 
propounded,  the  interpretation  acquired  in  argument  all 
the  authority  of  the  text  itself.  Melchizedek  is  both 
priest  and  king ;  therefore  the  Pope  has  regal  as  well  as 
ecclesiastical  authority.  The  two  swords  of  which  Christ 
said,  '  It  is  enough,"  are  the  spiritual  and  temporal  powers, 
and  the  grant  of  the  spiritual  to  Peter  involves  the  suprem- 
acy of  the  Papacy.0  Thus  one  writer  proves  the  eternity 
of  Rome  from  the  seventy-second  Psalm,  '  They  shall  fear 
thee  as  long  as  the  sun  and  moon  endure,  throughout  all 
generations ; '  the  moon  being  of  course,  since  Gregory 
VII,  the  Roman  Empire,  as  the  sun,  or  greater  light,  is 
the  Popedom.  Another  quoting,  '  Qui  tenet  teneat  donee 
auferatur  (he  who  now  letteth  will  let  until  he  be  taken 
out  of  the  way),'  p  with  Augustine's  explanation  thereof,*1 
says,  that  when  'he  who  letteth'  is  removed,  tribes  and 

0  Papalists   often   insisted  that   both   swords  were   given  to  Peter,  while 
Imperialists   assigned   the   temporal   sword    to   John.     Thus   a   gloss  to  the 
Sacksenspiegel  says,  '  Dat  eine  svert  hadde  Sinte  Peter,  dat  het  nu  de  paves  ; 
dat  andere  hadde  Johannes,  dat  het  nu  de  keyser.' 

P  2  Thess.  ii.  7. 

1  St.  Augustine,  however,  though  his  commentary  states  the  view  (apply- 
ing  the   passage   to   the    Roman   Empire)  which   was   thereafter   generally 
received,  is  careful  not  to  commit  himself  positively  to  it. 


THEORY  OF   THE   MEDIAEVAL  EMPIRE  115 

provinces  will  rise  in  rebellion,  and  the  Empire  to  which  CHAP.  vn. 
God  has  committed  the  government  of  the  human  race 
will  be  dissolved.  From  the  miseries  of  his  own  time  (he 
wrote  under  Frederick  III)  he  predicts  that  the  end  is 
near.  The  same  spirit  of  symbolism  seized  on  the  number 
of  the  electors  :  'the  seven  lamps  burning  in  the  unity  of 
the  sevenfold  spirit  which  illumine  the  Holy  Empire.' r 
Strange  legends  told  how  Romans  and  Germans  were  of 
one  lineage ;  how  Peter's  staff  had  been  found  on  the 
banks  of  the  Rhine,  the  miracle  signifying  that  a  commis- 
sion was  issued  to  the  Germans  to  reclaim  wandering  sheep 
to  the  one  fold.8  So  complete  does  the  scriptural  proof 
appear  in  the  hands  of  mediaeval  churchmen,  many  holding 
it  a  mortal  sin  to  resist  the  power  ordained  of  God,  that 
we  forget  they  were  all  the  while  only  adapting  to  an  exist- 
ing institution  what  they  found  written  long  before;  we 
begin  to  fancy  that  the  Empire  was  maintained,  obeyed, 
exalted  for  centuries,  on  the  strength  of  words  to  which  we 
attach  in  almost  every  case  a  wholly  different  meaning. 

It  would  be  a  pleasant  and  profitable  task  to  pass  on  iiiustra- 
from  the  theologians  to  the  poets  and  artists  of  the  Middle  tions  from, 

.        Mediaeval 

Ages,  and  endeavour  to  trace  through  their  works  the  in-  Artf 
fluence  of  the  ideas  which  have  been  expounded  above. 
But  it  is  a  task  far  too  wide  for  the  scope  of  the  present 
treatise ;  and  one  which  would  demand  an  acquaintance 
with  those  works  themselves  such  as  only  minute  and  long- 
continued  study  could  give.  For  even  a  slight  knowledge 
enables  any  one  to  see  how  much  still  remains  to  be  in- 
terpreted in  the  imaginative  literature  and  in  the  paintings 

r  lordanis  Chronica  (written  towards  the  close  of  the  thirteenth  century). 

•  This  is  really  no  stranger  than  the  belief  long  current,  and  perhaps  not 
wholly  extinct,  that  the  coronation  stone  of  Scone  (now  in  Westminster 
Abbey)  is  the  stone  on  which  Jacob  slept  at  Bethel,  and  which  was  afterwards 
carried  to  Ireland  from  Egypt,  and  from  Ireland  by  the  Scots  to  Dunstaffnage 
and  thence  to  Scone. 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


Mosaic  of 
the  Late i  an 
Palace  at 
Rome. 


CHAP.  vii.  of  mediaeval  times,  and  how  apt  we  are  in  glancing  over 
a  piece  of  work  to  miss  those  seemingly  trifling  indications 
of  the  artist's  thought  or  belief  which  are  all  the  more 
precious  that  they  are  indirect  or  unconscious.  Therefore 
a  history  of  mediaeval  art  which  shall  evolve  its  philosophy 
from  its  concrete  forms,  if  it  is  to  have  any  value  at  all, 
must  be  minute  in  description  as  well  as  subtle  in  method. 
But  lest  this  class  of  illustrations  should  appear  to  have 
been  wholly  forgotten,  it  may  be  well  to  mention  here  two 
pictures  in  which  the  theory  of  the  mediaeval  empire  is 
unmistakeably  set  forth.  One  of  them  is  in  Rome,  the 
other  in  Florence ;  every  traveller  in  Italy  may  examine 
both  for  himself. 

The  first  of  these  is  the  famous  mosaic  of  the  Lateran 
triclinium,  constructed  by  Pope  Leo  III  about  A.D.  800, 
which,  afterwards  restored  and  moved  to  its  present  site, 
may  still  be  seen  over  against  the  facade  of  the  great 
basilica  of  St.  John  Lateran.  Originally  meant  to  adorn  the 
state  banqueting-hall  of  the  Popes,  it  is  now  placed  in  the 
open  air,  in  the  finest  situation  in  Rome,  looking  from 
the  brow  of  a  hill  across  the  green  ridges  of  the  Campagna 
.to  the  olive-groves  of  Tivoli  and  the  glistering  crags  and 
snow-capped  summits  of  the  Umbrian  and  Sabine  Apen- 
nine.  It  represents  in  the  centre  Christ  surrounded  by 
the  Apostles,  whom  He  is  sending  forth  to  preach  the 
Gospel ;  one  hand  is  extended  to  bless,  the  other  holds  a 
book  with  the  words  '  Pax  Vobis.'  Below  and  to  the  right 
Christ  is  depicted  again,  and  this  time  sitting  :  on  His 
right  hand  kneels  Pope  Sylvester,  on  His  left  the  Emperor 
Constantine  ;  to  the  one  He  gives  the  keys  of  heaven  and 
hell,  to  the  other  a  banner  surmounted  by  a  cross.  In  the 
group  on  the  opposite,  that  is,  on  the  left  side  of  the  arch, 
we  see  the  Apostle  Peter  seated,  before  whom  in  like 
manner  kneel  Pope  Leo  III  and  Charles  the  Emperor; 


THEORY   OF  THE   MEDIAEVAL   EMPIRE  117 

the  latter  wearing,  like  Constantine,  his  crown.  Peter,  CHAP.  vn. 
himself  grasping  the  keys,  gives  to  Leo  the  pallium  of  an 
archbishop,  to  Charles  the  banner  of  the  Christian  army. 
The  inscription  is,  '  Beate  Petre  donas  vitam  Leoni  PP  et 
bictoriam  Carulo  regi  donas  ; '  while  round  the  arch  is 
written,  'Gloria  in  excelsis  Deo,  et  in  terra  pax  omnibus 
bonae  voluntatis.' 

The  order  and  nature  of  the  ideas  here  symbolized  is 
sufficiently  clear.  First  comes  the  revelation  of  the  Gos- 
pel, and  the  divine  commission  to  gather  all  men  into  its 
fold.  Next,  the  institution,  at  the  memorable  era  of  Con- 
stantine's  conversion,  of  the  two  powers  by  which  the 
Christian  people  is  to  be  respectively  taught  and  governed. 
Thirdly,  we  are  shewn  the  permanent  Vicar  of  God,  the 
Apostle  who  keeps  the  keys  of  heaven  and  hell,  re-estab- 
lishing these  same  powers  on  a  new  and  permanent  basis.* 
The  badge  of  ecclesiastical  supremacy  he  gives  to  Leo  as 
the  spiritual  head  of  the  faithful  on  earth,  the  banner  of 
the  Church  Militant  to  Charles,  who  is  to  maintain  her 
cause  against  heretics  and  infidels. 

The  second  painting  is  of  greatly  later  date.     It  is  a  Fresco  in 
fresco  in  the  chapter-house  of  the  Dominican  convent  of  Nov^at 
Santa  Maria  Novella n  at  Florence,  usually  known  as  the  Florence. 
Capellone   degli   Spagnuoli.     It   has   been   commonly  as- 
cribed, on  Vasari's  authority,  to  Simone  Martini  of  Siena, 
but  an  examination  of  the  dates  of  his  life  seems  to  dis- 
credit this  view.1     Most  probably  it  was  executed  between 
A.D.    1340  and   1350.     It  is  a  huge  work,   covering   one 
whole  wall  of  the  chapter-house,  and  filled  with   figures, 
some  of  which,  but  seemingly  on  no  sufficient  authority, 

*  See  Note  IX  at  end. 

11  The  church  in  which  the  opening  scene  of  Boccaccio's  Decameron  is  laid. 

*  So  Kugler  (Eastlake's  ed.  vol.  i.  p.  144),  and  so  also  Messrs.  Crowe  and 
Cavalcaselle,  in  their  New  History  of  Painting  in  Italy,  vol.  ii.  pp.  85  sqq. 


Il8  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  vii.  have  been  taken  to  represent  eminent  persons  of  the  time 
— Cimabue,  Arnolfo,  Boccaccio,  Petrarch,  Laura,  and  others. 
In  it  is  represented  the  whole  scheme  of  man's  life  here 
and  hereafter  —  the  Church  on  earth  and  the  Church  in 
heaven.  Full  in  front  are  seated  side  by  side  the  Pope 
and  the  Emperor :  on  their  right  and  left,  in  a  descending 
row,  minor  spiritual  and  temporal  officials ;  next  to  the 
Pope  a  cardinal,  bishops,  and  doctors  ;  next  to  the  Em- 
peror, the  king  of  France  and  a  line  of  nobles  and  knights. 
Behind  them  appears  the  Duomo  of  Florence  as  an  emblem 
of  the  Visible  Church,  while  at  their  feet  is  a  flock  of  sheep 
(the  faithful)  attacked  by  ravening  wolves  (heretics  and 
schismatics),  whom  a  pack  of  spotted  dogs  (the  Domini- 
can sy)  combat  and  chase  away.  From  this,  the  central 
foreground  of  the  picture,  a  path  winds  round  and  up  a 
height  to  a  great  gate  where  the  Apostle  sits  on  guard  to 
admit  true  believers  :  they  passing  through  it  are  met  by 
choirs  of  seraphs,  who  lead  them  on  through  the  delicious 
groves  of  Paradise.  Above  all,  at  the  top  of  the  painting 
and  just  over  the  spot  where  his  two  lieutenants,  Pope  and 
Emperor,  are  placed  below,  is  the  Saviour  enthroned  amid 
saints  and  angels.2 

Anti-  Here,  too,  there  needs  no  comment.     The  Church  Mili- 

natwtiai         tant  js  tne  perfect  counterpart  of  the  Church  Triumphant  : 

character  of  ,-ri  r 

the  Empire.  ner  chief  danger  is  from  those  who  would  rend  the  unity 
of  her  visible  body,  the  seamless  garment  of  her  heavenly 
Lord ;  and  that  devotion  to  His  person  which  is  the  sum 
of  her  faith  and  the  essence  of  her  being,  must  on  earth  be 

y  Domini  canes.     Spotted  because  of  their  black-and-white  raiment. 

z  There  is  of  course  a  great  deal  more  detail  in  the  picture,  which  need 
not  be  described.  St.  Dominic  is  a  conspicuous  figure. 

It  is  worth  remarking  that  the  Emperor,  who  is  on  the  Pope's  left  hand, 
and  so  made  slightly  inferior  to  him  while  superior  to  every  one  else,  holds 
in  his  hand,  instead  of  the  usual  imperial  globe,  a  death's  head,  typifying  the 
transitory  nature  of  his  power. 


THEORY   OF   THE   MEDIAEVAL   EMPIRE  119 

rendered  to  those  two  lieutenants  whom  He  has  chosen  to  CHAP.  vn. 
govern  in  His  name. 

A  theory  such  as  that  which  it  has  been  attempted  to 
explain  and  illustrate,  is  utterly  opposed  to  restrictions  of 
place  or  person.  The  idea  of  one  Christian  people,  all 
whose  members  are  equal  in  the  sight  of  God  —  an  idea 
so  forcibly  expressed  in  the  unity  of  the  priesthood,  where 
no  barrier  separated  the  successor  of  the  Apostle  from  the 
humblest  curate  —  and  in  the  prevalence  of  one  language 
for  worship  and  ecclesiastical  government,  made  the  post 
of  Emperor  independent  of  the  race,  or  rank,  or  actual 
resources  of  its  occupant.  The  Emperor  was  entitled  to 
the  obedience  of  Christendom,  not  as  hereditary  chief  of 
a  victorious  tribe,  or  feudal  lord  of  a  portion  of  the  earth's 
surface,  but  as  solemnly  invested  with  an  Office.  Not 
only  did  he  excel  in  dignity  the  kings  of  the  earth  :  his 
power  was  different  in  its  nature ;  and,  so  far  from  sup- 
planting or  rivalling  theirs,  rose  above  them  to  become 
the  source  and  needful  condition  of  their  authority  in 
their  several  territories,  the  bond  which  joined  them  in 
one  harmonious  body.  The  vast  dominions  and  vigorous 
personal  action  of  Charles  the  Great  had  concealed  this 
distinction  while  he  reigned  ;  under  his  successors  the 
imperial  crown  appeared  disconnected  from  the  direct 
government  of  the  kingdoms  into  which  his  realm  had 
been  divided,  existing  only  in  the  form  of  an  undefined 
suzerainty,  as  the  type  of  that  unity  without  which  men's 
minds  could  not  rest.  It  was  characteristic  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  that  demanding  the  existence  of  an  Emperor,  they 
cared  little  who  he  was  or  how  he  was  chosen,  so  he  had 
been  duly  inaugurated  ;  and  that  they  were  not  shocked 
by  the  contrast  between  unbounded  rights  and  actual  help- 
lessness. At  no  time  in  the  world's  history  has  theory, 
professing  all  the  while  to  control  practice,  been  so  utterly 


120  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  vii.  divorced  from  it.  Ferocious  and  sensual,  that  age  wor- 
shipped humility  and  asceticism  :  there  has  never  been 
a  purer  ideal  of  love,  nor  a  grosser  profligacy  of  life. 

The  power  of  the  Emperor  cannot  as  yet  be  called 
international,  though  this  became  in  later  times  its 
most  important  aspect ;  for  in  the  tenth  century  na- 
tional distinctions  had  scarcely  begun  to  exist.  But 
its  genius  was  clerical  rather  than  territorial,  Roman 
rather  than  Teutonic  :  it  rested  not  on  armed  hosts  or 
wide  lands,  but  upon  the  duty,  the  awe,  the  love  of  its 
subjects. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE   ROMAN   EMPIRE   AND   THE   GERMAN    KINGDOM 

THIS  was  the  office  which  Otto  the  Great  assumed  in  CHAP.  vin. 
A.D.  962.     But  it  was  not  his  only  office.     He  was  already    union  of 
a  German  king ;  and  the  new  dignity  by  no  means  super-  the  Roman 

/fmhir*  itrith. 

seded  the  old.     The  union  in  one  person  of  two  charac-  the  German 
ters,  a   union   at   first   personal,  then   official,  and  which  kingdom. 
became  at  last  a  fusion  of  the  two  characters  into  some- 
thing different  from  what  either  had  been,  is  the  key  to 
the  whole  subsequent  history  of  Germany  and  the  Empire. 

Of  the  German  kingdom  little  need  be  said,  since  it  Germany  and 
differs  in  no  essential  respect  from  the  other  kingdoms  of  t**monarcfy- 
Western  Europe  as  they  stood  in  the  tenth  century.  The 
five  or  six  great  tribes  or  tribe-leagues  which  composed 
the  German  nation  had  been  first  brought  together  under 
the  sceptre  of  the  Carolingians ;  and,  though  still  retain- 
ing marks  of  their  independent  origin,  were  prevented 
from  separating  by  community  of  speech  and  a  common 
pride  in  the  great  Prankish  Empire.  When  the  male  line 
of  Charles  the  Great  ended  in  A.D.  911,  by  the  death  of 
Lewis  the  Child  (son  of  Arnulf),  Conrad,  duke  of  the 
Franconians,  and  after  him  Henry  (the  Fowler),  duke  of 
the  Saxons,  were  chosen  to  fill  the  vacant  throne.  By  his 
vigorous  yet  conciliatory  action,  his  upright  character,  his 
courage  and  good  fortune  in  repelling  the  Hungarians, 
Henry  laid  deep  the  foundations  of  royal  power:  under 
his  more  famous  son  it  rose  into  a  stable  edifice.  Otto's 


122 


THE    HOLY   ROMAN    EMPIRE 


CHAP.  vin.  coronation  feast  at  Aachen,  where  the  great  nobles  of  the 
realm  did  him  menial  service,  where  Franks,  Bavarians, 
Suabians,  Thuringians,  and  Lorrainers  gathered  round  the 
Saxon  monarch,  is  the  inauguration  of  a  true  Teutonic 
realm,  which,  though  it  called  itself  not  German  but  East 
Prankish,  and  claimed  to  be  the  lawful  representative  of 
the  Carolingian  monarchy  of  Charles,  had  a  constitution 
and  a  tendency  in  many  respects  different. 

Feudalism.  There  had  been  under  the  Carolingian  princes  a  singu- 
lar mixture  of  the  old  German  local  organization  by  tribes 
or  districts  (the  so-called  Gauverfassung),  such  as  we  find 
in  the  earliest  records,  with  the  method  introduced  by 
Charles  of  maintaining  by  means  of  officials,  some  fixed, 
others  moving  from  place  to  place,  the  control  of  the 
central  government.  In  the  suspension  of  that  govern- 
ment which  followed  his  days,  there  grew  up  a  system 
whose  seeds  had  been  sown  as  far  back  as  the  time  of 
Clovis,  a  system  whose  essence  was  the  combination  of 
the  tenure  of  land  by  military  service  with  a  peculiar 
personal  relation  between  the  landlord  and  his  tenant, 
whereby  the  one  was  bound  to  render  fatherly  protection, 
the  other  aid  and  obedience.  This  is  not  the  place  for 
tracing  the  origin  of  feudality  on  Roman  soil,  nor  for 
shewing  how,  by  a  sort  of  contagion,  it  spread  into  Ger- 
many, how  it  struck  firm  root  in  the  period  of  comparative 
quiet  under  Pipin  and  Charles,  how  from  the  hands  of  the 
latter  it  took  the  impress  which  determined  its  ultimate 
form,  how  the  weakness  of  his  successors  allowed  it  to 
triumph  everywhere.  Still  less  would  it  be  possible  here 
to  examine  its  social  and  moral  influence.  Politically  it 
might  be  defined  as  the  system  which  made  the  owner 
of  a  piece  of  land,  whether  large  or  small,  the  governor  of 
those  who  dwelt  thereon  :  an  annexation  of  personal  to 
territorial  authority  more  familiar  to  Eastern  despotism 


ROMAN    EMPIRE    AND  GERMAN    KINGDOM         123 

than  to  the  free  races  of  primitive  Europe.  On  this  prin-  CHAP.  VIIL 
ciple  were  founded,  and  by  it  are  explained,  feudal  law  and 
justice,  feudal  finance,  feudal  legislation,  each  tenant  hold- 
ing towards  his  lord  the  position  which  his  own  tenants 
held  towards  himself.  And  it  is  just  because  the  relation 
was  so  uniform,  the  principle  so  comprehensive,  the  ruling 
class  so  firmly  bound  to  its  support,  that  feudalism  was 
able  to  lay  upon  society  that  grasp  which  the  struggles  of 
twenty  generations  have,  in  some  parts  of  Europe,  not  yet 
wholly  shaken  off. 

Now  by  the  middle  of  the  tenth  century,  Germany,  less  The  feudal 
fully  committed  than  France  to  feudalism's  worst  feature,  kinS' 
the  bondage  of  the  peasantry,  was  otherwise  thoroughly 
feudalized.  As  for  that  equality  of  all  the  freeborn  save 
the  sacred  line  which  we  find  in  the  Germany  of  Tacitus, 
there  had  been  substituted  a  gradation  of  ranks  and  a  con- 
centration of  power  in  the  hands  of  a  landholding  caste, 
so  had  the  monarch  lost  his  ancient  character  as  leader 
and  judge  of  the  people,  to  become  the  head  of  a  turbulent 
oligarchy.  He  was  titular  lord  of  the  soil,  could  exact 
from  his  vassals  service  and  aid  in  arms  and  money,  could 
dispose  of  vacant  fiefs,  could  at  pleasure  declare  war  or 
make  peace.  But  all  these  rights  he  exercised  less  as 
sovereign  of  the  nation  than  as  standing  in  a  peculiar 
relation  to  the  feudal  tenants,  a  relation  which  had  in  its 
origin  been  personal,  and  whose  prominence  obscured  the 
political  duties  of  prince  and  subject.  And  great  as  these 
rights  might  become  in  the  hands  of  an  ambitious  and 
politic  ruler,  they  were  in  practice  limited  by  the  corre- 
sponding duties  he  owed  to  his  vassals,  and  by  the  difficulty 
of  enforcing  them  against  a  powerful  offender.  The  king 
was  not  permitted  to  retain  in  his  own  hands  escheated 
fiefs,  must  even  grant  away  those  he  had  held  before  com- 
ing to  the  throne ;  he  could  not  interfere  with  the  juris- 


124  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  viii.  diction  of  his  tenants  in  their  own  lands,  nor  prevent  them 
The  nobility,  from  waging  war  or  forming  leagues  with  each  other  like 
independent  princes.  Chief  among  the  Germanic  nobles 
stood  the  dukes,  who,  although  their  authority  was  now 
delegated,  theoretically  at  least,  instead  of  independent, 
territorial  instead  of  personal,  retained  nevertheless  much 
of  that  hold  on  the  exclusive  loyalty  of  their  subjects 
which  had  belonged  to  them  as  hereditary  leaders  of  the 
tribe  under  the  ancient  system.  They  were,  with  the 
three  Rhenish  archbishops,  by  far  the  greater  subjects, 
often  aspiring  to  the  crown,  sometimes  not  unable  to  resist 
its  wearer.  The  constant  encroachments  which  Otto  made 
upon  their  privileges,  especially  through  the  institution  of 
the  Counts  Palatine,  destroyed  their  ascendancy,  but  not 
their  importance.  It  was  not  till  the  thirteenth  century 
that  they  disappeared  with  the  rise  of  the  second  order  of 
The  Ger.  nobility.  That  order,  at  this  period  far  less  powerful, 
ma™feudal  included  the  counts,  margraves  or  marquises,  and  land- 
generaiiy.  graves,  originally  officers  of  the  crown,  now  feudal  tenants  ; 
holding  their  lands  of  the  dukes,  and  maintaining  against 
them  the  same  contest  which  they  in  turn  waged  with  the 
crown.  Below  these  came  the  barons  and  simple  knights, 
then  the  diminishing  class  of  freemen,  the  increasing  class 
of  serfs.  The  institutions  of  primitive  Germany  were 
almost  all  gone ;  supplanted  by  a  new  system,  partly  the 
natural  result  of  the  formation  of  a  settled  from  a  half- 
nomad  society,  partly  imitated  from  that  which  had  arisen 
upon  Roman  soil,  west  of  the  Rhine  and  south  of  the  Alps. 
The  army  was  no  longer  the  Heerbann  of  the  whole  nation, 
which  had  been  wont  to  follow  the  king  on  foot  in  distant 
expeditions,  but  a  cavalry  militia  of  barons  and  their  re- 
tainers, bound  to  service  for  a  short  period,  and  rendering 
it  unwillingly  where  their  own  interest  was  not  concerned. 
The  frequent  popular  assemblies,  whereof  under  the  names 


ROMAN   EMPIRE   AND   GERMAN   KINGDOM         125 


of  the  Mallum,  the  Placitum,  the  Mayfield,  we  hear  so  CHAP.  vin. 
much  under  Clovis  and  Charles,  were  now  never  summoned, 
and  the  laws  that  had  been  promulgated  there  were  in  their 
old  form  obsolete,  though  the  substance  of  some  was  em- 
bodied in  well  established  customs.  No  national  council 
existed,  save  the  Diet  in  which  the  higher  nobility,  lay  and 
clerical,  met  their  sovereign,  sometimes  to  decide  on  foreign 
war,  oftener  to  concur  in  the  grant  of  a  fief  or  the  pro- 
scription of  a  rebel.  Every  district  had  its  own  rude  local 
usages  administered  by  the  court  of  the  local  lord  :  other 
law  there  was  none,  for  imperial  jurisprudence  had  in  these 
lately  civilized  countries  not  yet  filled  the  place  left  empty 
by  the  disuse  of  the  old  barbarian  codes. 

This  condition  of  things  was  indeed  better  than  that 
utter  confusion  which  had  gone  before,  for  a  principle  of 
order  had  begun  to  group  and  bind  the  tossing  atoms ;  and 
though  the  union  into  which  it  drove  men  was  an  imperfect 
and  narrow  one,  it  was  something  that  they  should  have 
learnt  to  unite  themselves  at  all.  Yet  nascent  feudality 
was  but  one  remove  from  anarchy ;  and  the  tendency  to 
isolation  and  diversity  had  continued,  despite  the  efforts  of 
the  Church  and  the  Carolingian  princes,  to  be  all-powerful 
in  Western  Europe.  The  German  kingdom  was  already  a 
bond  between  the  German  races,  and  appears  strong  and 
united  when  we  compare  it  with  the  France  of  Hugh  Capet, 
or  the  England  of  Ethelred  II;  yet  its  history  down  to 
the  twelfth  century  is  little  else  than  a  record  of  disorders, 
revolts,  civil  wars,  of  a  ceaseless  struggle  on  the  part  of 
the  monarch  to  enforce  his  feudal  rights,  a  resistance  by 
his  vassals  equally  obstinate  and  more  frequently  success- 
ful. What  the  issue  of  the  contest  might  have  been  if 
Germany  had  been  left  to  take  her  own  course  is  matter 
of  conjecture,  though  the  example  of  every  European  state 
except  England  and  Poland  may  incline  the  balance  in 


126  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  viii.  favour  of  the  crown.  But  the  strife  had  scarcely  begun 
The  Roman  when  a  new  influence  was  interposed  :  the  German  king 
the^Ger^an  became  Roman  Emperor.  No  two  systems  can  be  more 
kingdom,  unlike  than  those  whose  headship  became  thus  vested  in 
one  person :  the  one  centralized,  the  other  local ;  the  one 
resting  on  a  sublime  theory,  the  other  the  rude  offspring 
of  anarchy  ;  the  one  gathering  all  power  into  the  hands  of 
an  irresponsible  monarch,  the  other  limiting  his  rights  and 
authorizing  resistance  to  his  commands  ;  the  one  demand- 
ing the  equality  of  all  Christians  as  creatures  equal  before 
Heaven,  the  other  bound  up  with  an  aristocracy  the 
proudest,  and  in  its  gradations  of  rank  the  most  exact, 
that  Europe  had  ever  seen.  Characters  so  repugnant 
could  not,  it  might  be  thought,  meet  in  one  person,  or  if 
they  met  must  strive  till  one  swallowed  up  the  other.  It 
was  not  so.  In  the  fusion  which  began  from  the  first, 
though  it  was  for  a  time  imperceptible,  each  of  the  two 
characters  gave  and  each  lost  some  of  its  attributes  :  the 
king  became  more  than  German,  the  Emperor  less  than 
Roman,  till,  at  the  end  of  six  centuries,  the  monarch  in 
whom  two  'persons'  had  been  united,  appeared  as  a  third 
different  from  either  of  the  former,  and  might  not  inap- 
propriately be  entitled  'German  Emperor.' a  The  nature 
and  progress  of  this  change  will  appear  in  the  after  history 
of  Germany,  and  cannot  be  described  here  without  in  some 
measure  anticipating  subsequent  events.  A  word  or  two 
may  indicate  how  the  process  of  fusion  began. 

It  was  natural  that  the  great  mass  of  Otto's  subjects,  to 
whom  the  imperial  title,  dimly  associated  with  Rome 
and  the  Pope,  sounded  grander  than  the  regal,  without 
being  known  as  otherwise  different,  should  in  thought 
and  speech  confound  them.  The  sovereign  and  his  eccle- 

a  Although  this  was  of  course  never  his  legal  title.  Till  1 806  he  was 
'  Romanorum  Imperator  semper  Augustus ' ;  '  Romischer  Kaiser.' 


ROMAN   EMPIRE  AND   GERMAN   KINDGOM        127 

siastical  advisers,  with  clearer  views  of  the  new  dignity  CHAP.VIII. 
and  of  the  relation  of  the  two  offices  to  one  another,  found  Results  of 
it  impossible  to  separate  them  in  practice,  and  were  glad 
to  merge  the  lesser  in  the  greater.  For  as  lord  of  the 
world,  Otto  was  Emperor  north  as  well  as  south  of  the 
Alps.  When  he  issued  an  edict,  he  claimed  the  obedience 
of  his  Teutonic  subjects  in  both  capacities ;  when  as  Em- 
peror he  led  the  armies  of  the  gospel  against  the  heathen, 
it  was  the  standard  of  their  feudal  superior  that  his 
armed  vassals  followed  :  when  he  founded  churches  and 
appointed  bishops,  he  acted  partly  as  suzerain  of  feudal 
lands,  partly  as  protector  of  the  faith,  charged  to  guide 
the  Church  in  matters  temporal.  Thus  the  assumption 
of  the  imperial  crown  brought  to  Otto  as  its  first  result 
an  apparent  increase  of  domestic  authority ;  it  made  his 
position  by  its  historical  associations  more  dignified,  by 
its  religious  more  hallowed ;  it  raised  him  higher  above 
his  vassals  and  above  other  sovereigns ;  it  enlarged  his 
prerogative  in  ecclesiastical  affairs,  and  by  necessary  con- 
sequence gave  to  ecclesiastics  a  more  important  place  at 
court  and  in  the  administration  of  government  than  they 
had  enjoyed  before.  Great  as  was  the  power  of  the  bish- 
ops and  abbots  in  all  the  feudal  kingdoms,  it  stood 
nowhere  so  high  as  in  Germany.  There  the  Emperor's 
double  position,  as  head  both  of  Church  and  State,  re- 
quired the  two  organizations  to  be  exactly  parallel.  In  the 
eleventh  century  a  full  half  of  the  land  and  wealth  of  the 
country,  and  no  small  part  of  its  military  strength,  was  in 
the  hands  of  Churchmen  :  their  influence  predominated 
in  the  Diet ;  the  archchancellorship  of  the  Empire,  highest 
of  all  offices,  was  held  by,  and  eventually  came  to  belong  of 
right  to,  the  archbishop  of  Mentz,  as  primate  of  Germany. 
It  was  by  Otto,  who  in  resuming  the  attitude  must  repeat 
the  policy  of  Charles,  that  the  greatness  of  the  clergy  was 


128 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


Changes  in 
title. 


CHAP.  vin.  thus  advanced.  He  is  commonly  said  to  have  wished  to 
weaken  the  aristocracy  by  raising  up  rivals  to  them  in  the 
hierarchy.  It  may  have  been  so,  and  the  measure  was  at 
any  rate  a  disastrous  one,  for  the  clergy  soon  approved 
themselves  scarcely  less  rebellious  than  those  whom  they 
were  expected  to  restrain.  But  in  accusing  Otto's  judge- 
ment, historians  have  often  forgotten  in  what  position  he 
stood  to  the  Church,  and  how  it  behoved  him,  according 
to  the  doctrine  received,  to  establish  in  her  an  order  like 
in  all  things  to  that  which  he  found  already  subsisting  in 
the  State. 

The  style  which  Otto  adopted  shewed  his  desire  thus 
to  merge  the  king  in  the  Emperor.b  Charles  had  called 
himself  '  Imperator  Caesar  Carolus  rex  Francorum  invic- 
tissimus ' ;  and  again,  '  Carolus  serenissimus  Augustus, 
Pius,  Felix,  Romanorum  gubernans  Imperium,  qui  et  per 
misericordiam  Dei  rex  Francorum  atque  Langobardorum.' 
Otto  and  his  first  successors,  who  until  their  coronation 
at  Rome  had  used  the  titles  of  '  Rex  Francorum,'  or  '  Rex 
Francorum  Orientalium,'  or  oftener  still  'Rex'  alone,  dis- 
carded after  it  all  titles  save  the  highest  of  '  Imperator 
Augustus,'  seeming  thereby,  though  they  too  had  been 
crowned  at  Aachen  and  Milan,  to  claim  the  authority  of 
Caesar  through  all  their  dominions.  Tracing  as  we  are 
the  history  of  a  title,  it  is  needless  to  dwell  on  the  signifi- 
cance of  the  change.  Charles,  son  of  the  Ripuarian  allies 
of  the  Emperor  Probus,  had  been  a  Prankish  chieftain 
on  the  Rhine ;  Otto,  the  Saxon  successor  of  the  Cheruscan 
Arminius,  would  rule  his  native  Elbe  with  a  power  borrowed 
from  the  Tiber. 

Nevertheless,  the  imperial   element   did   not  in   every 

b  Putter,  Dissertationes  de  Instauratlone  Imperii  Romani :  cf.  Goldast's 
Collection  of  Constitutions;  and  the  proclamations  and  other  documents 
collected  in  Pertz,  M.  G.  H.,  Legg.  ii.  p.  19  sqq. 


ROMAN   EMPIRE   AND   GERMAN   KINGDOM        129 

respect  predominate  over  the  royal.     The  monarch  might  CHAP.VIII. 
desire   to   make   good   against   his  turbulent  barons   the  imperial 
boundless  prerogative  which   he   acquired  with   his   new  *?*?,. 

.  feudalized. 

crown,  but  he  lacked  the  power  to  do  so ;  and  they,  dis- 
puting neither  the  supremacy  of  that  crown  nor  his  right 
to  wear  it,  refused  with  good  reason  to  let  their  own 
freedom  be  infringed  upon  by  any  act  of  which  they  had 
not  been  the  authors.  So  far  was  Otto  from  embarking 
on  so  vain  an  enterprise,  that  his  rule  was  even  more 
direct  and  more  personal  than  that  of  Charles  had  been. 
There  was  no  scheme  of  mechanical  government,  no 
claim  of  absolutism ;  there  was  only  the  resolve  to  make 
the  energetic  assertion  of  the  king's  feudal  rights  subserve 
the  further  aims  of  the  Emperor.  What  Otto  demanded 
he  demanded  as  Emperor,  what  he  received  he  received 
as  king;  the  singular  result  was  that  in  Germany  the 
imperial  office  was  itself  pervaded  and  transformed  by 
feudal  ideas.  Feudality  needing,  to  make  its  theory 
complete,  a  lord  paramount  of  the  world,  from  whose 
grant  all  ownership  in  land  must  be  supposed  to  have 
emanated,  and  finding  such  a  suzerain  in  the  Emperor, 
constituted  him  liege  lord  of  all  kings  and  potentates, 
keystone  of  the  feudal  arch,  himself,  as  it  was  expressed, 
'holding'  the  world  from  God.  There  were  not  wanting 
Roman  institutions  to  which  these  notions  could  attach 
themselves.  Constantine,  imitating  the  courts  of  the 
East,  had  made  the  dignitaries  of  his  household  great 
officials  of  the  State :  these  were  now  reproduced  in  the 
cup-bearer,  the  seneschal,  the  marshal,  the  chamberlain 
of  the  Empire,  presently  to  become  its  electoral  princes. 
The  holding  of  land  on  condition  of  military  service  had 
been  known  in  Roman  days :  the  divided  ownership  of 
feudal  law  found  its  analogies  in  the  Roman  tenure  of 
emphyteusis.  Thus  while  Germany  was  Romanized  the 


130 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN    EMPIRE 


CHAP.  vin.  Empire  was  feudalized,  and  came  to  be  considered  not 
the  antagonist  but  the  perfection  of  an  aristocratic  system. 
This  conception  of  a  suzerainty  over  minor  potentates, 
since  it  was  adapted  to  existing  political  facts,  enabled  the 
Empire  afterwards  to  assume  an  international  character. 
Nevertheless,  even  while  they  seemed  to  blend,  there 
remained  between  the  genius  of  imperialism  and  that  of 
feudalism  a  deep  and  lasting  hostility.  And  so  the  rule  of 
Otto  and  his  successors  was  in  a  measure  adverse  to  feudal 
polity,  not  from  knowledge  of  what  Roman  government 
had  been,  but  from  the  necessities  of  their  position,  raised 
as  they  were  to  an  unapproachable  height  above  their 
subjects,  surrounded  with  a  halo  of  sanctity  as  protectors 
of  the  Church.  Thus  were  they  driven  to  seek  to  reduce 
local  independence,  and  assimilate  the  various  races 
through  their  vast  territories.  It  was  Otto  who  made  the 
Germans,  hitherto  an  aggregate  of  tribes,  a  single  people, 
and  welding  them  into  a  strong  political  body  taught 
them  to  rise  through  its  collective  greatness  to  the 
consciousness  of  national  life,  never  thenceforth  to  be 
extinguished. 

The  com-  One  expedient  against  the  land-holding  oligarchy  which 

old  Roman  traditions  as  well  as  present  needs  might  have 
suggested  it  was  scarcely  possible  for  Otto  to  use.  He 
could  not  invoke  the  friendship  of  a  Third  Estate,  for  as 
yet  none  existed.  The  Teutonic  order  of  freemen,  which 
two  centuries  earlier  had  formed  the  bulk  of  the  popula- 
tion, was  now  fast  disappearing,  just  as  in  England  all  who 
did  not  become  thanes  were  classed  as  ceorls,  and  from 
ceorls  sank  for  the  most  part,  after  the  Norman  Conquest, 
into  villeins.  It  was  only  in  the  Alpine  valleys  and  along 
the  shores  of  the  ocean  that  small  free  communities  main- 
tained themselves.  Town-life  there  was  none,  till  Henry 
the  Fowler  forced  his  forest-loving  people  to  dwell  in 


ROMAN    EMPIRE   AND    GERMAN   KINGDOM         131 

fortresses  that  might  repel  the  Hungarian  invaders;  and  CHAP. vin. 
the  burgher  class  thus  beginning  to  form  was  as  yet  too 
small  to  be  a  power.  But  popular  freedom,  as  it  expired, 
bequeathed  to  the  monarch  such  of  its  rights  as  could  be 
saved  from  the  grasp  of  the  nobles ;  and  the  crown  thus 
became  what  it  has  been  wherever  an  aristocracy  presses 
upon  both,  the  tacit  ally  of  the  people.  More,  too,  than 
the  royal  name  could  have  done,  did  the  imperial  name 
invite  the  sympathy  of  the  commons.  For  in  all,  however 
ignorant  of  its  history,  however  unable  to  comprehend  its 
functions,  there  yet  lived  a  feeling  that  it  was  in  some 
mysterious  way  consecrated  to  Christian  brotherhood  and 
equality,  to  peace  and  law,  to  the  restraint  of  the  strong 
and  the  defence  of  the  helpless. 


CHAPTER   IX 

SAXON    AND    FRANCONIAN    EMPERORS 

CHAP.  ix.  HE  who  begins  to  read  the  history  of  the  Middle  Ages 
is  alternately  amused  and  provoked  by  the  seeming  absurdi- 
ties that  meet  him  at  every  step.  He  finds  writers  pro- 
claiming amidst  universal  assent  magnificent  theories  which 
no  one  attempts  to  carry  out.  He  sees  men  stained  with 
every  vice  full  of  sincere  devotion  to  a  religion  which,  even 
when  its  doctrines  were  most  obscured,  never  sullied  the 
purity  of  its  moral  teaching.  He  is  disposed  to  conclude 
that  such  people  must  have  been  either  fools  or  hypocrites. 
Yet  in  so  concluding  he  would  greatly  err.  Every  one- 
knows  how  little  a  man's  actions  conform  to  the  general 
maxims  which  he  would  lay  down  for  himself,  and  how 
many  beliefs  he  holds  without  realizing  their  application, 
so  that  his  opinions,  though  they  influence  his  thoughts, 
do  not  govern  his  conduct.  Now  in  the  Middle  Ages  this 
perpetual  opposition  of  theory  and  practice  was  peculiarly 
abrupt.  Men's  impulses  were  more  violent  and  their 
conduct  more  reckless  than  is  usually  seen  in  modern 
communities;  while  the  absence  of  a  criticizing  and 
measuring  spirit  made  them  surrender  their  minds  more 
unreservedly  than  they  would  now  do  to  a  complete  and 
imposing  theory.  Therefore  it  was,  that  while  every  one 
believed  in  the  rights  of  the  Empire  as  a  part  of  divine 
truth,  no  one  would  yield  to  them  where  his  own  passions 
or  interests  interfered.  Resistance  to  God's  Vicar  might 

132 


SAXON   AND   FRANCONIAN   EMPERORS  133 

be  and  indeed  was  admitted  to  be  a  deadly  sin,  but  it  was  CHAP.  ix. 
one  which  few  hesitated  to  commit.  Hence,  in  order  to 
give  this  unbounded  imperial  prerogative  any  practical 
efficiency,  it  was  found  necessary  to  prop  it  up  by  the 
limited  but  tangible  authority  of  a  feudal  king.  And  the 
one  spot  in  Otto's  empire  on  which  feudality  had  never 
fixed  its  grasp,  and  where  therefore  he  was  forced  to  rule 
merely  as  Emperor,  and  not  also  as  king,  was  that  in 
which  he  and  his  successors  were  never  safe  from  insult 
and  revolt.  This  spot  was  his  capital.  Accordingly  an 
account  of  what  befel  the  first  Saxon  Emperor  in  Rome 
is  a  not  unfitting  comment  on  the  theory  expounded  above, 
as  well  as  a  curious  episode  in  the  history  of  the  Apostolic 
Chair. 

After  his  coronation  Otto  had  returned  to  North  Italy,  otto  the 
where  the  partizans  of  Berengar  and  his  son  Adalbert  still  Greatin 
maintained  themselves  in  arms.  Scarcely  was  he  gone 
when  the  restless  Pope,  who  found  too  late  that  in  seeking 
an  ally  he  had  given  himself  a  master,  renounced  his  alle- 
giance, opened  negotiations  with  Berengar,  and  did  not  even 
scruple  to  send  envoys  pressing  the  heathen  Magyars  to 
invade  Germany.  The  Emperor  was  soon  informed  of 
these  plots,  as  well  as  of  the  flagitious  life  of  the  pontiff, 
a  youth  of  twenty-five,  the  most  profligate  if  not  the  most 
guilty  of  all  who  have  worn  the  tiara.  But  he  affected  to 
despise  them,  saying,  with  a  sort  of  unconscious  irony, 
'He  is  a  boy,  the  example  of  good  men  may  reform  him.' 
When,  however,  Otto  returned  with  a  strong  force,  he 
found  the  city  gates  shut,  and  a  party  within  furious 
against  him.  John  the  Twelfth  was  not  only  Pope,  but  as 
the  heir  of  Alberic,  the  head  of  a  strong  faction  among 
the  nobles,  and  a  sort  of  temporal  prince  in  the  city.  But 
neither  he  nor  they  had  courage  enough  to  stand  a  siege  : 
John  fled  into  the  Campagna  to  join  Adalbert,  and  Otto 


134  THE    HOLY    ROMAN    EMPIRE 

CHAP.  ix.  entering  convoked  a  synod  in  St.  Peter's.  Himself  presid- 
ing as  temporal  head  of  the  Church,  he  began  by  inquiring 
into  the  character  and  manners  of  the  Pope.  At  once 
a  tempest  of  accusations  burst  forth  from  the  assembled 
clergy.  Bishop  Liudprand,  a  credible  although  a  hostile 
witness,  gives  us  a  long  list  of  them  :  —  '  Peter,  cardinal- 
priest,  rose  and  witnessed  that  he  had  seen  the  Pope  cele- 
brate mass  and  not  himself  communicate.  John,  bishop  of 
Narnia,  and  John,  cardinal-deacon,  declared  that  they  had 
seen  him  ordain  a  deacon  in  a  stable,  neglecting  the  proper 
formalities.  They  said  further  that  he  had  defiled  by  shame- 
less acts  of  vice  the  pontifical  palace ;  that  he  had  openly 
diverted  himself  with  hunting  ;  had  put  out  the  eyes  of  his 
spiritual  father  Benedict ;  had  set  fire  to  houses  ;  had  girt 
himself  with  a  sword,  and  put  on  a  helmet  and  hauberk. 
All  present,  laymen  as  well  as  priests,  cried  out  that  he 
had  drunk  to  the  devil's  health  ;  that  in  throwing  the  dice 
he  had  invoked  the  help  of  Jupiter,  Venus,  and  other  de- 
mons ;  that  he  had  celebrated  matins  at  uncanonical  hours, 
and  had  not  fortified  himself  by  making  the  sign  of  the 
cross.  After  these  things  the  Emperor,  who  could  not 
speak  Latin,  since  the  Romans  could  not  understand  his 
native,  that  is  to  say,  the  Saxon  tongue,  bade  Liudprand 
bishop  of  Cremona  interpret  for  him,  and  adjured  the 
council  to  declare  whether  the  charges  they  had  brought 
were  true,  or  sprang  only  of  malice  and  envy.  Then  all 
the  clergy  and  people  cried  with  a  loud  voice,  'If  Pope 
John  hath  not  committed  all  the  crimes  which  Benedict 
the  deacon  hath  read  over,  and  even  greater  crimes  than 
these,  then  may  the  chief  of  the  Apostles,  the  blessed 
Peter,  who  by  his  word  closes  heaven  to  the  unworthy  and 
opens  it  to  the  just,  never  absolve  us  from  our  sins,  but 
may  we  be  bound  by  the  chain  of  anathema,  and  on  the  last 
day  may  we  stand  on  the  left  hand  along  with  those  who 


SAXON   AND   FRANCONIAN   EMPERORS  135 

have  said  to  the  Lord  God,  "  Depart  from  us,  for  we  will  CHAP.  ix. 
not  know  Thy  ways." ' 

The  solemnity  of  this  answer  seems  to  have  satisfied 
Otto  and  the  council :  a  letter  was  despatched  to  John, 
couched  in  respectful  terms,  recounting  the  charges 
brought  against  him,  and  asking  him  to  appear  to  clear 
himself  by  his  own  oath  and  that  of  a  sufficient  number  of 
compurgators.  John's  reply  was  short  and  pithy. 

'  John  the  bishop,  the  servant  of  the  servants  of  God,  to 
all  the  bishops.  We  have  heard  tell  that  you  wish  to  set 
up  another  Pope  :  if  you  do  this,  by  Almighty  God  I  ex- 
communicate you,  so  that  you  may  not  have  power  to  per- 
form mass  or  to  ordain  no  one.'  a 

To  this  Otto  and  the  synod  replied  by  a  letter  of  humor- 
ous expostulation,  begging  the  Pope  to  reform  both  his 
morals  and  his  Latin.  But  the  messenger  who  bore  it 
could  not  find  John  :  he  had  repeated  what  seems  to  have 
been  thought  his  most  heinous  sin,  by  going  out  into  the 
country  to  shoot : b  and  after  a  search  had  been  made 
in  vain,  the  synod  resolved  to  take  a  decisive  step.  Otto,  Deposition  o 
who  still  led  their  deliberations,  demanded  the  condemna-  7ohn  XIL 
tion  of  the  Pope ;  the  assembly  deposed  him  by  acclama- 
tion, '  because  of  his  reprobate  life,'  and  having  obtained 
the  Emperor's  consent,  proceeded  in  an  equally  hasty 
manner  to  raise  Leo,  the  chief  secretary  and  a  layman,  to 
the  chair  of  the  Apostle. 

Otto  might  seem  to  have  now  reached  a  position  loftier 
and  firmer  than  that  of  any  of  his  predecessors.  Within 

a '  Johannes  episcopus,  servus  servorum  Dei,  omnibus  episcopis.  Nos 
audivimus  dicere  quia  vos  vultis  alium  papam  facere :  si  hoc  facitis,  da  Deum 
omnipotent  em  excommunico  vos,  ut  non  habeatis  licentiam  missam  celebrate 
aut  nullum  ordinare.'  —  Liudprand,  Historia  Ottonis,  c.  13.  The  'da'  shews 
the  progress  of  the  change  from  Latin  to  Italian.  The  answer  sent  by  Otto 
and  the  council  takes  exception  to  the  double  negative. 

b  '  In  campestria  pharetratus  abierat,' 


136  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

little  more  than  a  year  from  his  arrival  in  Rome,  he  had 
exercised  powers  greater  than  those  of  Charles  himself, 
ordering  the  dethronement  of  one  pontiff  and  the  installa- 
tion of  another,  forcing  a  reluctant  people  to  bend  them- 
selves to  his  will.  The  submission  involved  in  his  oath  to 
protect  the  Holy  See  was  more  than  compensated  by  the 
oath  of  allegiance  to  his  crown  which  the  Pope  and  the 
Romans  had  taken,  and  by  their  solemn  engagement  not 
to  elect  or  ordain  any  future  pontiff  without  the  Emperor's 
consent.0  But  he  had  yet  to  learn  what  this  obedience 
and  these  oaths  were  worth.  The  Romans  had  eagerly 
joined  in  the  expulsion  of  John ;  they  soon  began  to  regret 
him.  They  were  mortified  to  see  their  streets  filled  by  a 
foreign  soldiery,  the  habitual  licence  of  their  manners 
sternly  repressed,  their  most  cherished  privilege,  the  right 
of  choosing  the  universal  bishop,  grasped  by  the  strong 
hand  of  a  master  who  used  it  for  purposes  with  which  they 
did  not  sympathize.  In  a  fickle  and  turbulent  people,  dis- 
affection quickly  turned  to  rebellion.  One  night,  Otto's 
troops  being  most  of  them  dispersed  in  their  quarters  at  a 
distance,  the  Romans  rose  in  arms,  blocked  up  the  Tiber 
bridges,  and  fell  furiously  upon  the  Emperor  and  his 
creature  the  new  Pope.  Superior  valour  and  constancy 
triumphed  over  numbers,  and  the  Romans  were  overthrown 
with  terrible  slaughter;  yet  this  lesson  did  not  prevent 
them  from  revolting  a  second  time,  after  Otto's  departure 
in  pursuit  of  Adalbert.  John  the  Twelfth  returned  to  the 
city,  and  when  his  pontifical  career  was  speedily  closed  by 
the  sword  of  an  injured  husband,d  the  people  chose  a  new 

c  '  Gives  fidelitatem  repromittunt  hoc  addentes  et  firmiter  iurantes  nun- 
quam  se  papam  electuros  aut  ordinaturos  praeter  consensum  atque  electionem 
domini  imperatoris  Ottonis  Caesaris  Augusti  filiique  ipsius  regis  Ottonis.'  — 
Liudprand,  Historia  Ottonis,  c.  8. 

d  '  In  timporibus  adeo  a  dyabulo  est  percussus  ut  infra  dierum  octo  spa- 
cium  eodem  sit  in  vulnere  mortuus,'  says  Liudprand,  c.  19,  crediting  with  less 


SAXON   AND   FRANCONIAN   EMPERORS  137 

Pope  in  defiance  of  the  Emperor  and  his  nominee.  Otto  CHAP.  ix. 
again  subdued  and  again  forgave  them,  but  when  they  re- 
belled for  a  third  time,  in  A.D.  966,  he  resolved  to  shew  them 
what  imperial  supremacy  meant.  Thirteen  leaders,  among 
them  the  twelve  tribunes,  were  executed,  the  consuls 
were  banished,  republican  forms  entirely  suppressed, 
the  government  of  the  city  entrusted  to  the  Pope  as  vice- 
roy. He,  too,  must  not  presume  on  the  sacredness  of 
his  person  to  set  up  any  claims  to  independence.  Otto 
regarded  the  pontiff  as  no  more  than  the  first  of  his  sub- 
jects, the  creature  of  his  own  will,  the  depositary  of  an 
authority  which  must  be  exercised  according  to  the  discre- 
tion of  the  sovereign.  He  obtained  from  his  nominee,  Leo 
VIII,  a  confirmation  of  the  veto  on  papal  elections  which 
the  citizens  had  yielded  in  A.D.  963  (and  which  it  was 
afterwards  supposed  that  Hadrian  I  had  granted  to  Charles) 
in  a  decree  which  may  yet  be  read  among  the  documents 
which  constitute  canon  law.6  The  vigorous  exercise  of 
such  a  power  might  be  expected  to  reform  as  well  as  to 
restrain  the  apostolic  see ;  and  it  was  for  this  purpose,  and 
in  noble  honesty,  that  the  Teutonic  monarchs  employed 
it.  But  the  fortunes  of  Otto  in  the  city  are  a  type  of  those 
which  his  successors  were  destined  to  experience.  Not- 
withstanding their  admitted  rights  and  the  momentary 
enthusiasm  with  which  they  were  greeted  in  Rome,  not 
all  the  efforts  of  Emperor  after  Emperor  could  gain  any 
firm  hold  on  the  capital  they  were  so  proud  of.  Visiting 
it  only  once  or  twice  in  their  reigns,  they  must  be  sup- 

than  his  wonted  craft  the  supposed  author  of  John's  death,  who  well  might 
have  desired  a  long  life  for  so  useful  a  servant. 

He  adds  — '  Sed  eucharistiae  viaticum,  ipsius  instinctu  qui  eumpercusserat, 
non  percepit.' 

e  Corpus  luris  Canonici,  Dist.  Ixiii,  </»  synodo?  A  decree  which  is 
probably  substantially  genuine,  although  the  form  in  which  we  have  it  is  evi- 
dently of  later  date. 


138  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

ported  among  a  fickle  populace  by  a  large  army  of  strangers, 
which  melted  away  with  terrible  rapidity  under  the  sun  of 
Italy  amid  the  deadly  hollows  of  the  Campagna.1  Rome 
soon  resumed  her  turbulent  independence. 

Causes  partly  the  same  prevented  the  Saxon  princes 
from  gaining  a  firm  footing  throughout  Italy.  Since 
Charles  the  Bald  had  bartered  away  for  the  crown  all  that 
made  it  worth  having,  no  Emperor  had  exercised  effective 
authority  there.  The  missi  dominici  had  ceased  to  traverse 
the  country ;  the  local  governors  had  thrown  off  control,  a 
crowd  of  petty  potentates  had  established  principalities 
by  aggressions  on  their  weaker  neighbours.  Only  in  the 
dominions  of  great  nobles,  like  the  marquis  of  Tuscany 
and  duke  of  Spoleto,  and  in  some  of  the  cities  where  the 
supremacy  of  the  bishop  was  paving  the  way  for  a  republi- 
can system,  could  traces  of  political  order  be  found,  or  the 
arts  of  peace  flourish.  Otto,  who,  though  he  came  as  a 
conqueror,  ruled  legitimately  as  Italian  king,  found  his 
feudal  vassals  less  amenable  than  in  Germany.  While 
actually  present  he  succeeded  by  progresses  and  edicts,  and 
stern  justice,  in  doing  something  to  still  the  turmoil ;  on 
his  departure  Italy  relapsed  into  that  disorganization  for 
which  her  natural  features  were  not  less  answerable  than 
the  mixture  of  her  races.  Yet  it  was  at  this  era,  when  the 
confusion  was  wildest,  that  there  appeared  the  first  rudi- 
ments of  an  Italian  nationality,  based  partly  on  geographi- 
cal position,  partly  on  the  use  of  a  common  language  and 
the  slow  growth  of  peculiar  customs  and  modes  of  thought. 
But  though  already  jealous  of  the  Tedescan,  Lombards  and 
Tuscans  were  still  very  far  from  disputing  his  sway.  Pope, 
magnates,  and  cities  bowed  to  Otto  as  king  and  Emperor ; 
nor  did  he  bethink  himself  of  crushing  while  it  was  weak  a 
sentiment  whose  developement  threatened  the  existence  of 

f  As  to  the  fevers  see  Note  X  at  end. 


SAXON   AND   FRANCONIAN   EMPERORS  139 

his  empire.     Holding  Italy  equally  for  his  own  with  Ger-  CHAP.  ix. 
many,  and  ruling  both  on  the  same  principles,  he  was  con- 
tent to  keep  it  a  separate  kingdom,  neither  changing  its 
institutions  nor  sending  Saxons,  as  Charles  had  sent  Franks, 
to  represent  his  government.8 

The  lofty  claims  which  Otto  acquired  with  the  Roman  otto's 
crown  urged  him  to  resume  the  plans  of  foreign  conquest  f°reis* 
which  had  lain  neglected  since  the  days  of  Charles  :  the  f° l<y' 
growing  vigour  of  the  Teutonic  people,  now  definitely 
separating  themselves  from  surrounding  races  (this  is  the 
era  when  frontier  countships  such  as  the  Marks  of  Bran- 
denburg, Meissen,  and  Schleswig,  were  established),  placed 
in  his  hands  a  force  to  execute  those  plans  which  his 
predecessors  had  wanted.  In  this,  as  in  his  other  enter- 
prises, the  great  Emperor  was  active,  wise,  successful. 
Retaining  the  southern  half  of  Italy,  and  unwilling  to 
confess  the  loss  of  Rome,  the  Eastern  Emperors  had  not 
ceased  to  annoy  her  German  masters  by  intrigue,  and 
might  now,  under  the  vigorous  leadership  first  of  Ni- 
cephorus  and  then  of  the  Armenian  John  Tzimiskes,  hope 
again  to  menace  them  in  arms.  Policy,  and  the  fascina-  Towards 
tion  which  an  ostentatiously  legitimate  court  exercised  Byzantlvm- 
over  the  Saxon  stranger,  made  Otto,  as  Napoleon  wooed 
Maria  Louisa,  seek  for  his  heir  the  hand  of  the  prin- 
cess Theophano,  daughter  of  the  Emperor  Romanus  II. 
Bishop  Liudprand's  account  of  his  embassy  represents 
in  an  amusing  manner  the  rival  pretensions  of  the  old  and 
new  Empires.11  The  Easterns,  who  fancied  that  with  the 
name  they  preserved  the  character  and  rights  of  Rome, 
held  it  almost  as  absurd  as  it  was  wicked  that  a  Frank 
should  insult  their  prerogative  by  reigning  in  Italy  as 

8  There  was  a  separate  chancellor  for  Italy,  as  afterwards  for  the  king- 
dom of  Burgundy. 

h  Liudprand,  Legatio  Constantinopolitana. 


140 


THE  HOLY   ROiMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  ix.  Emperor.  They  refused  him  that  title  altogether ;  and 
when  the  Pope  had,  in  a  letter  addressed  '  Imperatori  Grae- 
corum?  asked  Nicephorus  Phocas,  successor  of  Romanus  II 
and  stepfather  of  Theophano,  to  gratify  the  wishes  of  the 
Emperor  of  the  Romans,  the  Eastern  was  furious.  '  You 
are  no  Romans/  said  he,  'but  wretched  Lombards:  what 
means  this  insolent  Pope  ?  with  Constantine  all  Rome 
migrated  hither.'  The  wily  bishop  appeased  him  by  revil- 
ing the  citizens  of  Rome,  while  he  insinuated  that  Con- 
stantinople had  no  right  to  take  their  name,  and  proceeded 
to  vindicate  the  Francia  and  Saxonia  of  his  master. 
' "  Roman "  is  the  most  contemptuous  name  we  can  use 
—  it  conveys  the  reproach  of  every  vice,  cowardice,  false- 
hood, avarice.  But  what  can  be  expected  from  the  de- 
scendants of  the  fratricide  Romulus  ?  to  his  asylum  were 
gathered  the  offscourings  of  the  nations :  thence  came 
these  Koa-/jLOKpdrope<i.'  Nicephorus  among  other  demands 
required  the  *  theme '  or  province  of  Rome  as  the  price  of 
compliance  ;!  his  successor,  and  murderer,  John  Tzimiskes, 
was  more  moderate,  and  Theophano  became  the  bride  of 
Otto  II. 

Towards  the  Holding  the  two  capitals  of  Charles  the  Great,  Otto 
West  Franks.  might  vindicate  the  suzerainty  over  the  West  Prankish 
kingdom  which  it  had  been  meant  that  the  imperial  title 
should  carry  with  it.  Arnulf  had  asserted  the  claim  by 
making  Eudes,  the  first  king  of  the  line  which  takes  its 
name  from  his  grand-nephew  Hugh  Capet,  receive  the 
crown  as  a  feudatory :  Henry  the  Fowler  had  been  less 
successful.  Otto  pursued  the  same  course,  intriguing 
with  the  discontented  nobles  of  the  Carolingian  Louis 
d'Outremer,  and  receiving  their  fealty  as  Superior  of 
Roman  Gaul.  These  pretensions,  however,  could  have 

'  '  Sancti   imperil    nostri    olim   servos    principes,    Beneventanum    scilicet, 
tradat,'  &c.  —  Legatio,  c.  15.     The  epithet  is  worth  noticing. 


SAXON  AND   FRANCONIAN   EMPERORS  141 

been  made  effective  only  by  arms,  and  the  feudal  militia  CHAP.  ix. 
of  the  tenth  century  was  no  such  instrument  of  conquest 
as  the  hosts  of  Clovis  and  Charles  had  been.  The  star 
of  the  Carolingian  king  upon  the  fortress-hill  of  Laon 
was  paling  before  the  rising  greatness  of  the  Parisian 
Capets  :  a  Romano-Celtic  nation  had  formed  itself,  dis- 
tinct in  tongue  from  the  Franks,  whom  it  was  fast  ab- 
sorbing, and  still  less  willing  to  submit  to  a  Saxon 
stranger.  The  modern  kingdom  of  France j  may  be  said 
to  date  from  the  accession  of  Hugh  Capet,  A.D.  987,  and 
the  claims  of  the  Roman  Empire  were  never  afterwards 
formally  admitted. 

Of  that  France,  however,  Aquitaine  was  virtually  inde-  Lorraine 
pendent.  Lotharingia  and  Burgundy  did  not  belong  to  andBur~ 
it  at  all.  The  former  of  these  kingdoms  had  adhered 
to  the  West  Frankish  king,  Charles  the  Simple,  against 
the  East  Frankish  Conrad :  but  now,  as  mostly  German 
in  blood  and  speech,  threw  itself  into  the  arms  of  Otto, 
and  was  thenceforth  (till  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
centuries)  an  integral  part  of  the  Empire.  Burgundy, 
a  separate  kingdom,  had,  by  seeking  from  Charles  the 
Fat  a  ratification  of  Boso's  election,  by  admitting,  in  the 
person  of  Rudolf  the  first  Transjurane  king,  the  feudal 
superiority  of  Arnulf,  acknowledged  itself  to  be  depend- 
ent on  the  German  crown.  Otto  governed  it  for  thirty 
years,  nominally  as  the  guardian  of  the  young  king  Con- 
rad (son  of  Rudolf  II). 

Otto's  conquests  to  the  North  and  East  approved  him 

i  Liudprand  calls  the  Eastern  Franks  '  Franci  Teutonic! '  to  distinguish 
them  from  the  Romanized  Franks  of  Gaul  or  '  Francigenae '  as  they  were 
frequently  called.  The  name  '  Frank '  seems  even  so  early  as  the  tenth  cen- 
tury to  have  been  used  in  the  East  as  a  general  name  for  the  Western  peoples 
of  Europe.  Liudprand  says  that  the  Eastern  Emperor  included  '  sub  Francorum 
nomine  tam  Latinos  quam  Teutonicos.'  Probably  this  use  dates  from  the 
time  of  Charles. 


142 


THE    HOLY    ROMAN    EMPIRE 


CHAP.  IX. 
Denmark 
and  the 
Slaves. 


England. 


Extent  of 
Otto's  Em- 
pire. 


a  worthy  successor  of  the  first  Emperor.  He  penetrated 
far  into  Jutland,  annexed  Schleswig,  made  Harold  the 
Blue-toothed  his  vassal.  The  Slavic  tribes  were  obliged 
to  submit,  to  follow  the  German  host  in  war,  to  allow 
the  free  preaching  of  the  Gospel  in  their  borders.  The 
Hungarians  he  forced  to  forsake  their  nomad  life,  and 
relieved  Europe  from  the  fear  of  Asiatic  invasions  by 
strengthening  the  frontier  of  Austria.  Over  more  distant 
lands,  Northern  Spain  and  England,  it  was  not  possible 
to  recover  the  commanding  position  of  Charles.  Henry, 
as  head  of  the  Saxon  name,  may  have  wished  to  unite  its 
branches  on  both  sides  the  sea,k  and  it  was  perhaps  partly 
with  this  intent  that  he  gained  for  Otto  the  hand  of  Edith, 
sister  of  the  English  king  Athelstan  the  Victorious.  But 
the  claim  of  supremacy,  if  any  there  was,  was  repudiated 
by  Edgar,  when,  exaggerating  the  lofty  style  assumed  by 
some  of  his  predecessors,  he  called  himself  '  Basileus  and 
Imperator  of  Britain,'  *  thereby  seeming  to  pretend  to  a 
sovereignty  over  all  the  nations  of  the  island  similar  to 
that  which  the  Roman  Emperor  claimed  over  the  states  of 
Christendom. 

This  restored  Empire,  which  professed  itself  a  continu- 
ation of  the  Carolingian,  was  in  many  respects  different. 
It  was  less  wide,  including,  if  we  reckon  strictly,  only 
Germany  proper  and  two-thirds  of  Italy ;  or  counting  in 

k  Conring,  De  Finibus  Imperil. 

1  Basileus  was  a  favourite  title  of  the  English  kings  before  the  Conquest. 
Titles  like  this  used  in  these  early  English  charters  prove,  it  need  hardly  h>3 
said,  absolutely  nothing  as  to  the  real  existence  of  any  rights  or  powers  of  the 
English  king  beyond  his  own  borders.  What  they  do  prove  (over  and  above 
the  taste  for  florid  rhetoric  in  the  royal  clerks)  is  the  impression  produced  by 
the  imperial  style,  and  by  the  idea  of  the  Emperor's  throne  as  supported  by  the 
thrones  of  kings  and  other  lesser  potentates.  See  hereon  Freeman,  Hist, 
of  Norm.  Conquest,  vol.  i.  ch.  3,  §  4;  who,  however,  draws  from  the  use  of 
such  titles  conclusions  regarding  the  rights  of  the  English  kings  over  the 
whole  of  Britain  which  seem  unwarranted. 


SAXON    AND   FRANCONIAN    EMPERORS  143 

subject  but  separate  kingdoms,  Burgundy,  Bohemia  and  CHAP.  ix. 
Moravia,  Poland,  Denmark,  perhaps  Hungary.  Its  char-  Comparison 
acter  was  less  ecclesiastical.  Otto  exalted  indeed  the  spirit-  and^katof 
ual  potentates  of  his  realm,  and  was  earnest  in  spreading  Charles. 
Christianity  among  the  heathen  :  he  was  master  of  the 
Pope  and  Defender  of  the  Holy  Roman  Church.  But 
religion  held  a  less  important  place  in  his  mind  and 
his  administration  :  he  made  fewer  wars  for  its  sake,  sum- 
moned no  councils,  and  did  not,  like  his  predecessor,  criti- 
cise the  discourses  of  bishops.  It  was  also  less  Roman. 
We  do  not  know  whether  Otto  associated  with  that  name 
anything  more  than  the  right  to  universal  dominion  and  a 
certain  oversight  of  matters  spiritual,  nor  how  far  he 
believed  himself  to  be  treading  in  the  steps  of  the  earlier 
Caesars.  He  could  not  speak  Latin,  though  he  tried  in 
middle  life  to  learn  it,  he  had  few  learned  men  around  him, 
he  cannot  have  possessed  the  varied  cultivation  which  had 
been  so  fruitful  in  the  mind  of  Charles.  Moreover,  the 
conditions  of  his  time  were  different,  and  did  not  permit 
similar  attempts  at  wide  organization.  The  local  potentates 
would  have  submitted  to  no  missi  dominici ;  separate  laws 
and  jurisdictions  would  not  have  yielded  to  imperial  capitu- 
laries ;  the  placita  at  which  those  laws  were  framed  or 
published  would  not  have  been  crowded,  as  of  yore,  by 
armed  freemen.  But  what  Otto  could  he  did,  and  did  it 
to  good  purpose.  Constantly  traversing  his  dominions,  he 
introduced  an  order  and  prosperity  before  unknown,  and  left 
everywhere  the  impress  of  an  heroic  character.  Under 
him  the  Germans  became  not  only  a  united  nation,  but 
were  at  once  raised  on  a  pinnacle  among  European  peoples 
as  the  imperial  race,  the  possessors  of  Rome  and  Rome's 
authority.  The  political  connection  with  Italy,  while  stir- 
ring their  spirit,  brought  with  it  a  knowledge  and  culture 
hitherto  unknown,  and  gave  the  newly  kindled  energy  an 


144 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  IX. 


Otto  II, 
A.D.  973-983. 

Otto  III, 

A.D.  983- 
1002. 


His  ideas. 
Fascination 
exercised 
over  him  by 
the  name  of 
Rome. 


object.  Germany  became  in  her  turn  the  instructress  of 
the  neighbouring  tribes,  who  trembled  at  Otto's  sceptre ; 
Poland  and  Bohemia  received  from  her  their  arts  and  their 
learning  with  their  religion.  If  the  revived  Romano- 
Germanic  Empire  was  less  splendid  than  the  Empire  of 
the  West  had  been  under  Charles,  it  was,  within  narrower 
limits,  firmer  and  more  lasting,  since  based  on  national 
and  social  forces  which  the  other  had  wanted.  It  per- 
petuated the  name,  the  language,  the  literature,  such  as 
it  then  was,  of  Rome ;  it  extended  her  spiritual  sway ;  it 
strove  to  represent  that  concentration  for  which  men 
cried,  and  became  a  power  to  unite  and  civilize  Europe. 
The  time  of  Otto  the  Great  has  required  a  fuller  treat- 
ment, as  the  era  of  the  Holy  Empire's  foundation  :  suc- 
ceeding rulers  may  be  more  quickly  dismissed.  Yet  Otto 
Ill's  reign  cannot  pass  unnoticed  :  short,  sad,  full  of  bright 
promise  never  fulfilled.  His  mother  was  the  Eastern 
princess  Theophano  ;  his  perceptor  the  illustrious  Gerbert 
of  Aurillac  (who  had  studied  in  the  schools  of  Moorish 
Spain),  archbishop,  first  of  Rheims  and  afterwards  of 
Ravenna :  through  the  one  he  felt  himself  connected 
with  the  legitimacy  of  the  Eastern  Empire,  and  had 
imbibed  its  absolutist  spirit ;  by  the  other  he  had  been 
reared  in  the  dream  of  a  renovated  Rome,  with  her  mem- 
ories turned  to  realities.  To  accomplish  that  renovation, 
who  so  fit  as  he  who  with  the  vigorous  blood  of  the 
Teutonic  conqueror  inherited  the  venerable  rights  of  Con- 
stantinople ?  It  was  his  design,  now  that  the  solemn 
millennial  era  of  the  birth  of  Christ  had  arrived,  to  renew 
the  majesty  of  the  city  and  make  her  again  the  capital  of 
a  world-embracing  Empire,  victorious  as  Trajan's,  despotic 
as  Justinian's,  holy  as  Constantine's.  His  young  and  vision- 
ary mind  was  too  much  dazzled  by  the  gorgeous  fancies 
it  created  to  see  the  world  as  it  was  —  Germany  rude, 


SAXON   AND   FRANCONIAN  EMPERORS  145 

Italy  unquiet,  Rome  corrupt  and  faithless.  In  A.D.  995,  at  CHAP.  ix. 
the  age  of  fifteen,  he  took  from  his  grandmother's  hands 
the  reins  of  government,  and  entered  Italy  to  receive  his 
crown,  and  quell  the  disorders  of  Rome.  There  he  put  to 
death  the  rebel  Crescentius,  in  whom  modern  enthusiasm 
has  seen  a  patriotic  republican,  who,  reviving  the  institu- 
tions of  Alberic,  had  ruled  as  consul,  or  senator,  sometimes 
entitling  himself  Emperor.  The  young  monarch  reclaimed, 
perhaps  extended,  the  privilege  of  Charles  and  Otto  the 
Great,  by  nominating  successive  pontiffs  :  first  Bruno  his 
cousin  (Gregory  V),  then  Gerbert,  whose  papal  name  of 
Sylvester  II  recalled  significantly  the  ally  of  Constantine :  pope 
Gerbert,  to  his  contemporaries  a  marvel  of  science  and  sy'^"f^  ft, 

,..,  ,  ,,  ..  ,  ,  r     A.U.  1000. 

learning,  in  later  legend  the  magician  who,  at  the  price  of 
his  own  soul,  purchased  preferment  from  the  Enemy,  and 
by  him  was  at  last  carried  off  in  the  body.  With  the  substi- 
tution of  these  men  for  the  profligate  priests  of  Italy,  began 
that  Teutonic  reform  of  the  Papacy  which  raised  it  from 
the  abyss  of  the  tenth  century  to  the  point  where  Hilde- 
brand  found  it.  The  Emperors  were  working  the  ruin  of 
their  power  by  their  most  disinterested  acts. 

With   his   tutor  on  Peter's  chair  to   second   or  direct  schemes  of 
him,  Otto  laboured  on  his  great  project  in  a  spirit  almost  °"°a"'esof 
mystic.     He  had  an  intense   religious  belief  in  the  Em-  styieand 
peror's  duties   to   the   world  —  in    his    proclamations    he  ™g<- 
calls  himself  '  Servant  of  the  Apostles,'  '  Servant  of  Jesus 
Christ'™  —  together  with  the  ambitious  antiquarianism  of 
a  fiery  imagination,  kindled  by  the  memorials  of  the  glory 
and  power  he  represented.     Even  the  wording  of  his  laws 

m  In  Pertz,  M.  G.  H.,  Diplomatum  ii.  part  ii.  n.  226 :  '  Otto  servus  aposto- 
lorum  et  deo  favente  Romanorum  imperat or  Augustus.'  Ibid.  n.  344:  'Otto 
tercius  Servus  lesu  Christi  et  Romanorum  imperator  Augustus.'  These  titles 
become  general  after  the  beginning  of  1000;  there  seems  only  one  example 
before  (see  n.  226). 
L 


146  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  ix.  witnesses  to  the  strange  mixture  of  notions  that  filled  his 
eager  brain.  'We  have  ordained  this,'  says  an  edict,  'in 
order  that,  the  Church  of  God  being  freely  and  firmly 
stablished,  our  Empire  may  be  advanced  and  the  crown  of 
our  knighthood  triumph  ;  that  the  power  of  the  Roman 
people  may  be  extended  and  the  commonwealth  be  re- 
stored ;  so  may  we  be  found  worthy  after  living  righteously 
in  the  tabernacle  of  this  world,  to  fly  away  from  the  prison 
of  this  life  and  reign  most  righteously  with  the  Lord.'  To 
exclude  the  claims  of  the  Eastern  Court  he  used  the  title 
' Romanorum  Imperator'  instead  of  the  simple  l Imperator' 
of  his  predecessors.  His  seals  bear  a  legend  resembling 
that  used  by  Charles,  Renovatio  '  Imperil  Romanorum  '  ; 
even  the  '  commonwealth,'  despite  the  results  that  name 
had  produced  under  Alberic  and  Crescentius,  was  to  be 
re-established.  He  built  a  palace  on  the  Aventine,  then 
the  most  healthy  and  beautiful  quarter  of  the  city ;  he 
devised  a  regular  administrative  system  of  government  for 
his  capital  —  naming  a  patrician,  a  prefect,  and  a  body  of 
judges,  who  were  commanded  to  recognize  no  law  but  the 
Roman.  The  formula  of  their  appointment  has  been  pre- 
served to  us:  in  it  the  Emperor  delivering  to  the  judge 
a  copy  of  the  code  bids  him  'with  this  code  judge  Rome 
and  the  Leonine  city  and  the  whole  world.'  He  intro- 
duced into  the  simple  German  court  the  ceremonious  mag- 
nificence of  the  East,  not  without  giving  offence  to  many 
of  his  followers.11  He  asserted  his  prerogative  by  confer- 
ring the  regal  title  upon  the  rulers  of  Hungary  and  Poland. 
His  father's  wish  to  draw  Italy  and  Germany  more  closely 
together,  he  followed  up  by  giving  the  chancellorship  of 
both  countries  to  the  same  churchman,  by  maintaining  a 

"  '  Imperator  antiquam  Romanorum  consuetudinem  iam  ex  magna  parte 
deletam  suis  cupiens  renovare  temporibus  multa  faciebat  quae  diversi  diverse 
sentiebant.'  —  Thietmar,  Chron.  bk  iv.  c.  29  (Pertz,  M.  G.  H.  Hi.  p.  781). 


SAXON   AND  FRANCONIAN   EMPERORS  147 

strong  force  of  Germans  in  Italy,  and  by  taking  his  Italian  CHAP.  ix. 
retinue  with  him  through  the  Transalpine  lands.  How  far 
these  brilliant  and  wide-reaching  plans  were  capable  of 
realization,  had  their  author  lived  to  attempt  it,  can  be  but 
guessed  at.  It  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  whatever 
power  he  might  have  gained  in  the  South  he  would  have 
lost  in  the  North.  Dwelling  rarely  in  Germany,  and  in 
sympathies  more  a  Southern  than  a  Teuton,  he  reined  in 
the  fierce  barons  with  no  such  tight  hand  as  his  grand- 
father had  been  wont  to  do ;  he  displeased  the  Germans 
by  favouring  the  claim  which  the  Pope  advanced  to  con- 
trol their  prelates  ;  he  neglected  the  schemes  of  northern 
conquest  ;  he  released  the  Polish  monarch  from  the  obli- 
gation of  tribute,  and  relaxed  the  hold  of  Germany  on  the 
Hungarians.  But  all,  save  that  those  plans  were  his,  is 
now  no  more  than  conjecture,  for  Otto  III,  'the  wonder  of 
the  world,'  as  his  own  generation  called  him,  died  childless 
on  the  threshhold  of  manhood  ;  the  victim,  if  we  may  trust 
a  story  of  the  time,  of  the  revenge  of  Stephania,  the  widow 
of  Crescentius,  who  ensnared  him  by  her  beauty,  and  slew 
him  by  a  lingering  poison.  They  carried  him  across  the 
Alps  with  laments  whose  echoes  sound  faintly  from  the 
pages  of  monkish  chroniclers,  and  buried  him  in  the  choir 
of  the  basilica  at  Aachen  some  fifty  paces  from  the  tomb 
of  Charles  beneath  the  central  dome.  Two  years  had  not 
passed  since,  setting  out  on  his  last  journey  to  Rome,  he 
had  opened  that  tomb,  had  gazed  on  the  great  Emperor, 
sitting  on  a  marble  throne,  robed  and  crowned,  with  the 
Gospel-book  open  before  him  ;  and  there,  touching  the 
dead  hand,  unclasping  from  the  neck  its  golden  cross,  had 
taken  as  it  were,  an  investiture  of  Empire  from  his  Prank- 
ish forerunner.0  Short  as  was  his  life  and  few  his  acts, 

0  The  details  regarding  the  finding  of  the  body  of  Charles,  though  given 
by  a  contemporary  annalist,  have   been  recently  discredited  as  inconsistent 


148 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  IX. 


Italy  inde- 
pendent. 


Henry  II 
Emperor, 
A.D.  1014- 
1024. 


Otto  III  is  in  one  respect  more  memorable  than  any  who 
went  before  or  came  after  him.  None  save  he  desired  to 
make  the  seven-hilled  city  again  the  seat  of  dominion, 
reducing  Germany  and  Lombardy  and  Greece  to  their 
rightful  place  of  subject  provinces.  No  one  else  so  forgot 
the  present  to  live  in  the  light  of  the  ancient  order  ;  no 
other  soul  was  so  possessed  by  that  fervid  mysticism  and 
that  reverence  for  the  glories  of  the  past,  whereon  rested 
the  idea  of  the  mediaeval  Empire. 

The  direct  line  of  Otto  the  Great  had  now  ended,  and 
though  the  Franks  might  elect  and  the  Saxons  accept 
Henry  II  (called  the  Saint)  p  (great-grandson  of  Henry  the 
Fowler  and  thus  second  cousin  of  Otto  III),  Italy  was  not 
bound  by  their  acts.  Neither  the  Empire  nor  the  Lom- 
bard kingdom  could  yet  be  claimed  as  of  right  by  the  Ger- 
man king.  Her  princes  placed  Ardoin,  marquis  of  Ivrea, 
on  the  vacant  throne  of  Pavia,  moved  partly  by  the  grow- 
ing aversion  to  a  Transalpine  power,  still  more  by  the 
desire  of  impunity  under  a  monarch  feebler  than  any  since 
Berengar.  But  the  selfishness  that  had  exalted  Ardoin 
soon  overthrew  him.  Ere  long  a  party  among  the  nobles, 
seconded  by  the  Pope,  invited  Henry,  who  had  already 
entered  Italy  in  A.D.  1004;  his  strong  army  made  opposi- 
tion hopeless,  and  at  Rome  he  received  the  imperial  crown, 
A.D.  1014.  The  crowning  there  of  three  successive  Ger- 
man kings,  and  the  alliance  of  the  second  with  an  East 
Roman  dynasty,  had  evidently  strengthened  the  attraction 


with  Eginhard's  statement  that  Charles  was  buried  on  the  day  of  his  death, 
and  are  open  to  other  objections.  But  there  are  points  in  the  account  which 
seem  unlikely  to  have  been  invented ;  and  it  is  possible  that  the  placing  of  the 
body  in  the  tomb  was  only  provisional,  and  that  it  was  immediately  after- 
wards embalmed  and  set  in  the  position  in  which  Otto  III  found  it.  —  Cf. 
Hodgkin,  Italy  and  her  Invaders,  vol.  viii.  p.  273. 

P  Annales  Quedlinb.,  ad  ann.  1002,  in  Pertz,  M.  G.  H.,  Script,  iii.  p.  78. 


SAXON   AND   FRANCONIAN  EMPERORS  149 

which  the  South  had  for  the  North.  It  is,  perhaps,  more  CHAP.  ix. 
singular  that  the  Transalpine  kings  should  have  clung  so 
pertinaciously  to  Italian  sovereignty  than  that  the  Lom- 
bards should  have  so  frequently  attempted  to  recover  their 
independence.  For  the  former  had  often  little  or  no 
hereditary  claim,  they  were  not  secure  in  their  seat  at 
home,  they  crossed  a  huge  mountain  barrier  into  a  land  of 
treachery  and  hatred.  But  Rome's  glittering  lure  was 
irresistible,  and  the  disunion  of  Italy  promised  an  easy  con- 
quest. Surrounded  by  martial  vassals,  these  Emperors  were 
generally  for  the  moment  supreme  :  once  their  pennons  had 
disappeared  in  the  gorges  of  Tyrol,  things  reverted  to  their 
former  condition,  and  Tuscany  was  little  more  dependent 
than  France.  In  Southern  Italy  the  viceroy  of  the  Southern 
Eastern  Emperor  ruled  from  Bari,  and  Rome  was  an  out-  Italy- 
post  instead  of  the  centre  of  Teutonic  power.  A  curious 
evidence  of  the  wavering  politics  of  the  time  is  furnished 
by  the  Annals  of  Benevento,  the  Lombard  town  which  on 
the  confines  of  the  East  Roman  and  West  Roman  realms 
gave  steady  obedience  to  neither.  They  usually  date  by 
and  recognize  the  princes  of  Constantinople,*1  seldom  men- 
tioning the  Franks,  till  the  reign  of  Conrad  II ;  after  him 
the  Western  becomes  Imperator,  the  Eastern,  appearing 
more  rarely,  is  Imperator  Constantinopolitanus.  Assailed 
by  the  Saracens,  masters  already  of  Sicily,  these  regions 
seemed  on  the  eve  of  being  lost  to  Christendom,  and 
the  Romans  sometimes  bethought  themselves  of  return- 

«  Annales  Beneventani,  in  Pertz,  M.  G.  H.,  Script,  iii.  pp.  173  sq.;  eg.  sub 
anno  958  (p.  175).  So  an  annalist  at  Salerno,  writing  at  the  end  of  the 
tenth  century,  says  that  the  true  emperor  is  he  who  reigns  at  Constantinople 
though  'the  kings  of  the  Gauls  have  now  usurped  the  title.'  'Imperator 
omnimodis  non  dici  potest  nisi  qui  regnum  Romanum  praeest,  hoc  est  Con- 
stantinopolitanum.  Reges  Gallorum  nunc  usurparunt  sibi  talem  nomen,  nam 
antiquitus  omnimodis  sic  non  vocitati  sumV  —  Chron.  Salern.  apud  (Pertz, 
M.  G.  H.,  Script,  iii.  p.  479). 


ISO 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  IX. 


Conrad  II, 
A.D.  1024- 
1039. 


Henry  III, 

A.D.  1039- 
1056. 


ing  under  the  sceptre  of  Constantinople.  As  the  weak- 
ness of  the  East  Roman  monarchs  in  the  South  favoured 
the  rise  of  the  Apulian  dominion  which  the  Norman 
Robert  Wiscard  established  (A.D.  1059-1077),  so  did  the 
liberties  of  the  Northern  cities  shoot  up  in  the  absence  of 
the  Germanic  Emperors  and  the  feuds  of  the  territorial 
magnates.  Milan,  Pavia,  Cremona,  were  only  the  fore- 
most among  many  populous  centres  of  industry,  some  of 
them  already  self-governing,  all  quickly  absorbing  or  repel- 
ling the  rural  nobility,  and  not  afraid  to  display  by  tumults 
their  aversion  to  the  Germans. 

The  reign  of  Conrad  II  (usually  called  the  Salic),  the 
first  Emperor  of  the  great  Franconian  line,  is  remarkable 
for  the  accession  to  the  Empire  of  Burgundy,  or,  as  it  is 
after  this  time  more  often  called,  the  kingdom  of  Aries/ 
Rudolf  III,  the  last  king,  had  proposed  to  bequeath  it  to 
Henry  II,  and  the  states  were  at  length  persuaded  to  con- 
sent to  its  reunion  to  the  crown  from  which  it  had  been 
separated,  though  to  some  extent  dependent,  since  the 
death  of  Lothar  I  (son  of  Lewis  the  Pious).  On  Rudolf's 
death  in  1032,  Eudes,  count  of  Champagne,  endeavoured  to 
seize  it,  and  entered  the  North-western  districts,  from  which 
he  was  dislodged  by  Conrad  with  some  difficulty.  Unlike 
Italy,  it  became  an  integral  member  of  the  Germanic 
realm  :  its  prelates  and  nobles  sat  in  imperial  diets,  and 
long  retained  the  style  and  title  of  Princes  of  the  Holy 
Empire.  The  central  government  was,  however,  seldom 
effective  in  these  outlying  territories,  exposed  always  to 
the  intrigues,  finally  to  the  aggressions,  of  Capetian 
France. 

Under  Conrad's  son  Henry  the  Third  the  Empire  at- 
tained the  meridian  of  its  power.  At  home  Otto  the  Great's 
prerogative  had  not  stood  so  high.  The  duchies,  always 

r  See  Appendix,  Note  A. 


SAXON   AND   FRANCONIAN  EMPERORS  151 

the  chief  source  of  disquietude,  were  allowed  to  remain  CHAP.  ix. 
vacant  or  filled  by  the  relatives  of  the  monarch,  who  him- 
self retained,  contrary  to  usual  practice,  those  of  Franconia 
and  (for  some  years)  Swabia.  Abbeys  and  sees  lay  virtu- 
ally in  his  gift.  Intestine  feuds  were  repressed  by  the 
proclamation  of  a  public  peace.  Abroad,  the  feudal  superi- 
ority over  Hungary,  which  Henry  II  had  gained  by  con- 
ferring the  title  of  King  with  the  hand  of  his  sister  Gisela, 
was  enforced  by  war,  the  country  made  almost  a  province, 
and  compelled  to  pay  tribute.  In  Rome  no  German  sov-  His  reform 
ereigrn  had  ever  been  so  absolute.  A  disgraceful  contest  °fthe 

popedom. 

between  three  claimants  of  the  papal  chair  had  shocked 
even  the  reckless  apathy  of  Italy.8  Henry  deposed  them 
all,  and  appointed  their  successor :  he  became  hereditary 
patrician,  and  wore  constantly  the  green  mantle  and  circlet 
of  gold  which  were  the  badges  of  that  office,  seeming,  one 
might  think,  to  find  in  it  some  further  authority  than  that 
which  the  imperial  name  conferred.  A  Roman  synod 
granted  to  Henry  the  right  of  nominating  the  supreme 
pontiff ;  and  the  Roman  priesthood,  who  had  forfeited  the 
respect  of  the  world  even  more  by  habitual  simony  than  by 
the  flagrant  corruption  of  their  manners,  were  forced  to 
receive  German  after  German  as  their  bishop,  at  the  bid- 
ding of  a  ruler  so  powerful,  so  severe,  and  so  pious.  But 
Henry's  encroachments  alarmed  his  own  nobles  no  less 
than  the  priesthood,  and  the  reaction,  which  might  have 


•At  a  provincial  synod  held  near  Rheims  in  991,  Arnulf  bishop  of 
Orleans  had  delivered  a  vehement  condemnation  of  the  conduct  and  preten- 
sions of  recent  pontiffs,  going  so  far  as  to  declare  the  Pope  to  be  Antichrist, 
'  sitting  in  the  temple  of  God  and  setting  himself  forth  as  God '  (2  Thess.  n. 
4).  As  Ranke  remarks  (Weltgeschichte,  vii.  p.  48),  Arnulf  and  other  oppo- 
nents of  papal  claims  were  sadly  hampered  by  the  power  ascribed  to  the 
Pope  in  the  Pseudo  Isidorian  decretals,  which  they  did  not  know  to  be 
forgeries. 


152  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  ix.  been  dangerous  to  himself,  was  fatal  to  his  successor.*  A 
Henry  iv,  mere  chance,  as  some  may  call  it,  determined  the  course  of 
*IOS  history.  The  great  Emperor  died  suddenly  in  A.D.  1056, 
and  a  child  was  left  at  the  helm,  while  storms  were  gather- 
ing that  might  have  demanded  the  wisest  hand. 

'  The  Abbey  of  Cluny  was  already  the  centre  of  a  monastic  movement  in 
favour  of  the  deliverance  of  the  clergy  from  secular  control. 


CHAPTER  X 

STRUGGLE  OF  THE  EMPIRE  AND  THE  PAPACY 

REFORMED  by  the  Emperors  and  their  Teutonic  nomi-  CHAP.X. 
nees,  the  Papacy  had  resumed  in  the  middle  of  the  elev- 
enth century  the  ambitious  schemes  shadowed  forth  by 
Nicholas  I,  and  which  the  degradation  of  the  last  age 
had  only  suspended.  Under  the  guidance  of  her  greatest 
mind,  Hildebrand,  the  archdeacon  of  Rome,  she  now 
advanced  to  their  completion,  and  proclaimed  that  war  of 
the  ecclesiastical  power  against  the  civil  power  in  the 
person  of  the  Emperor,  which  became  the  centre  of  the 
subsequent  history  of  both.  While  the  nature  of  the  strug- 
gle cannot  be  understood  without  a  glance  at  their  pre- 
vious connection,  the  vastness  of  the  subject  forbids  an 
attempt  to  draw  even  its  outlines,  and  restricts  our  view 
to  those  relations  of  Popedom  and  Empire  which  arise 
directly  out  of  their  respective  positions  as  heads  spiritual 
and  temporal  of  the  universal  Christian  state. 

The  eagerness  of  Christianity  in  the  age  immediately  Growth  of 
following  her  recognition  as  the  religion  favoured  by  the 
state  to  purchase  by  submission  the  support  of  the  civil 
power,  has  been  already  remarked.  The  change  from 
independence  to  supremacy  was  gradual.  The  tale  we 
smile  at,  how  Constantine,  healed  of  his  leprosy,  granted 
the  West  to  bishop  Sylvester,  and  retired  to  Byzantium 
that  no  secular  prince  might  interfere  with  the  jurisdiction 
or  profane  the  neighbourhood  of  Peter's  chair,  worked 
great  effects  through  the  belief  it  commanded  for  many 
centuries.  Nay  more,  it  had  a  sort  of  groundwork  in  fact. 

'S3 


154  THE    HOLY    ROMAN    EMPIRE 

CHAP.  x.  Through  the  removal  of  the  seat  of  government  from  the 
Tiber  to  the  Bosphorus  the  Pope  grew  to  be  the  greatest 
personage  in  the  city,  and  in  the  prostration  after  Alarich's 
invasion  he  was  seen  to  be  so.  Henceforth  he  alone  was 
a  permanent  and  effective,  though  still  unacknowledged 
power,  as  truly  superior  to  the  senate  and  consuls  in  the 
revived  municipal  republic  after  the  ninth  century  as 
Augustus  and  Tiberius  had  been  to  the  faint  continuance 
of  their  earlier  prototypes.  Pope  Leo  the  First  asserted 
the  universal  jurisdiction  of  his  see,a  and  his  persevering 
successors  slowly  enthralled  Italy,  Illyricum,  Gaul,  Spain, 
Africa,  dexterously  confounding  their  undoubted  metro- 
politan and  patriarchal  rights  with  those  of  oecumenical 
bishop,  in  which  they  were  finally  merged.  By  his  writings 
and  the  fame  of  his  personal  sanctity,  by  the  conversion 
of  England  and  the  introduction  of  an  impressive  ritual, 
Gregory  the  Great  did  more  than  any  other  pontiff  to 
advance  Rome's  ecclesiastical  authority.  Yet  his  tone 
to  Maurice  of  Constantinople  was  deferential,  to  Phocas 
adulatory ;  his  successors  were  not  consecrated  till  con- 
firmed by  the  Emperor  or  the  Exarch ;  one  of  them  was 
dragged  in  chains  to  the  Bosphorus,  and  banished  thence 
to  Scythia.  When  the  Image-breaking  controversy  and 
the  intervention  of  Pipin  weakened  and  ultimately  broke 
the  allegiance  of  the  Popes  to  the  East,  the  Franks,  as 
patricians  and  Emperors,  seemed  to  step  into  the  positior 
which  Constantinople  had  lost.b  At  Charles's  coronatior 
says  the  Saxon  poet, 

'  Et  summus  eundem 

Praesul  adoravit,  sicut  mos  debitus  olim 

Principibus  fuit  antiquis.' 

•  'Roma  per  sedem  Beati  Petri  caput  orbis  effecta.'  —  See  note 8  p.  31. 

b  '  Claves  .  .  .  vobis  ad  regnum  dimisimus.'  —  Pope  Gregory  III  to  Charles 
Martel,  in  Codex  Carolinus,  ap.  Muratori,  S.  R.  /.  iii.  part  ii.  p.  76.  Some, 
however,  prefer  to  read  '  ad  rogum.' 


STRUGGLE   OF   EMPIRE    AND   PAPACY  155 

Their  relations  were,  however,  no  longer  the  same.  If  CHAP.  x. 
the  Frank  vaunted  conquest,  the  priest  spoke  only  of  free 
gift.  What  Christendom  saw  was  that  Charles  was  crowned  Relations  of 
by  the  Pope's  hands,  and  undertook  as  his  principal  duty  tke^>aPacy 
the  protection  and  advancement  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire. 
Church.  The  circumstances  of  Otto  the  Great's  corona- 
tion gave  an  even  more  favourable  opening  to  sacerdotal 
claims,  for  it  was  a  Pope  who  summoned  him  to  Rome  and 
a  Pope  who  received  from  him  an  oath  of  fidelity  and  aid, 
as  it  had  been  through  the  action  of  successive  pontiffs 
that  the  fleeting  Emperors  of  the  preceding  hundred  years 
had  each  obtained  the  crown.  In  the  conflict  of  three 
powers,  the  Emperor,  the  pontiff,  and  the  people — repre- 
sented by  their  senate  and  consuls,  or  by  the  demagogue 
of  the  hour  —  the  most  steady,  prudent,  and  far-sighted 
was  sure  eventually  to  prevail.  The  Popedom  had  no 
minorities,  as  yet  few  disputed  successions,  few  revolts 
within  its  own  army  —  the  host  of  churchmen  through 
Europe.  The  conversion  of  Germany  by  the  English 
Winfrith  (St.  Boniface),  under  its  direct  sanction,  gave  it 
a  hold  on  the  rising  hierarchy  of  the  greatest  European 
state ;  the  extension  of  the  rule  of  Charles  and  Otto  dif- 
fused in  the  same  measure  its  emissaries  and  pretensions. 
The  first  disputes  turned  on  the  right  of  the  prince  to 
confirm  the  elected  pontiff,  which  was  afterwards  supposed 
to  have  been  granted  by  Hadrian  I  to  Charles,  in  the  de- 
cree quoted  as  '  Hadrianus  Papa.' c  This  '  ius  eligendi  et 
ordinandi  summum  pontificem!  which  Lewis  I  appears  as 
abandoning  by  the  '  Ego  Ltidovicus?  d  was  claimed  by  the 
Carolingians  whenever  they  felt  themselves  strong  enough, 
and  having  fallen  into  desuetude  in  the  troublous  times 
of  the  Italian  Emperors,  was  formally  renewed  to  Otto 

c  Corpus  Juris  Canonici,  Dist.  Ixiii.  c.  22. 

d  Dist.  Ixiii.  c.  30.    This  decree  is,  however,  probably  spurious. 


156  THE    HOLY    ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  x.  the  Great  by  his  nominee  Leo  VIII.  We  have  seen  it 
used,  and  used  in  the  purest  spirit,  by  Otto  himself,  by  his 
grandson  Otto  III,  last  of  all,  and  most  autocratically,  by 
Henry  III.  Along  with  it  there  had  grown  up  a  bold  coun- 
ter-assumption of  the  papal  chair  to  be  itself  the  source  of 
the  imperial  dignity.  In  submitting  to  a  fresh  coronation 
by  the  Pope,  Lewis  the  Pious  tacitly  admitted  the  invalidity 
of  that  previously  performed  by  his  father :  Charles  the 
Bald  did  not  scout  the  arrogant  declaration  of  John  VIII,6 
that  to  him  alone  the  Emperor  owed  his  crown ;  and  the 
council  of  Pavia,f  when  it  chose  that  monarch  king  of 
Italy,  repeated  the  assertion.  Subsequent  Popes  knew 
better  than  to  apply  to  the  chiefs  of  Saxon  and  Franconian 
chivalry  language  which  the  feeble  Neustrian  had  not 
resented ;  but  the  precedent  remained,  the  weapon  was 
only  hid  behind  the  pontifical  robe  to  be  flashed  out 
with  effect  when  the  moment  should  come.  There  were 
also  two  other  great  steps  which  papal  power  had  taken. 
By  the  invention  or  adoption  of  the  False  Decretals*  it 
had  provided  itself  with  a  legal  system  suited  to  any 
emergency,  and  which  gave  it  unlimited  authority  through 
the  Christian  world  in  causes  spiritual  and  over  persons 
ecclesiastical.  Canonistical  ingenuity  found  it  easy  in 
one  way  or  another  to  make  this  include  all  causes  and 
persons  whatsoever :  for  crime  is  always,  and  wrong  is 

e  '  Nos  elegimus  merito  et  approbavimus  una  cum  annisu  et  voto  patrum 
amplique  senatus  et  gentis  togatae,'  &c.,  ap.  Baron.  Ann.  Eccl.,  ad  ann.  876. 

f  '  Divina  vos  pietas  B.  principum  apostolorum  Petri  et  Pauli  interventione 
per  vicarium  ipsorum  dominum  loannem  summum  pontificem  ...  ad  impe- 
riale  culmen  S.  Spiritus  iudicio  provexit.'  —  Condi.  Ticinense,  in  Mur.  S.  J?. 
/.  ii.  part  i.  p.  150. 

*  These  decrees  attributed  to  early  Councils  and  Popes  were  forged,  prob- 
ably in  Gaul,  about  the  middle  of  the  ninth  century,  and  before  the  eleventh 
had  become  accepted  as  authentic.  The  collection  which  passed  under  the 
name  of  Isidore  contains  some  genuine  matter  with  a  great  deal  more  palpably 
invented. 


STRUGGLE   OF   EMPIRE   AND   PAPACY  157 

often,  sin,  nor  can  aught  be  anywhere  done  which  may  CHAP.  x. 
not  affect  the  clergy.  On  the  gifts  of  Pipin  and  Charles,  Temporal 
repeated  and  confirmed  by  Lewis  I,  Charles  II,  Otto  I, 
and  Otto  III,  and  now  made  to  rest  on  the  more  vener- 
able authority  of  the  first  Christian  Emperor,  it  could 
found  claims  to  the  sovereignty  of  Rome,  Tuscany,  and 
all  else  that  had  belonged  to  the  exarchate.  Indefinite 
in  their  terms,  these  grants  were  not  meant  by  the 
donors  to  convey  full  political  authority  over  the  districts 
bestowed  —  that  belonged  to  the  head  of  the  Empire  — 
but  only,  as  in  the  case  of  other  church  estates,  a  sort  of 
perpetual  usufruct,  a  beneficial  enjoyment  which  did  not 
carry  sovereignty,  but  might  be  deemed  to  carry  a  sort 
of  feudal  lordship  over  the  tenants  who  dwelt  upon  the 
soil.  They  were,  in  fact,  what  we  should  call  endow- 
ments. Nor  had  the  gifts  been  ever  actually  reduced  into 
possession :  the  Pope  had  been  hitherto  more  frequently 
the  victim  than  the  lord  of  the  neighbouring  barons.  The 
grants  were,  however,  not  denied,  and  might  be  made  a 
formidable  engine  of  attack.  Appealing  to  them,  the  Pope 
could  brand  his  opponents  as  unjust  and  impious ;  and 
could  summon  nobles  and  cities  to  defend  him  as  their 
liege  lord,  just  as,  with  no  better  original  right,  he  sub- 
sequently invoked  the  help  of  the  Norman  conquerors  of 
Naples  and  Sicily. 

The  attitude  of  the  Roman  Church  to  the  imperial 
power  at  Henry  the  Third's  death  was  externally  respect- 
ful. The  title  of  a  German  king  to  receive  the  crown 
of  the  city  was  not  seriously  disputed  and  the  Pope  was 
his  lawful  subject.  Hitherto  the  initiative  in  reform  had 
come  from  the  civil  magistrate.  But  the  secret  of  the 
pontiff's  strength  lay  in  this :  he,  and  he  alone,  could 
confer  the  crown,  and  had  therefore  the  right  of  imposing 
conditions  on  its  recipient.  Frequent  interregna,  while 


158  THE  HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  x.  they  had  enabled  the  Pope  to  assume  upon  each  occasion 
a  more  and  more  independent  position,  had  prevented 
the  power  of  the  Transalpine  sovereigns  from  taking  firm 
root.  None  of  them  could  claim  to  reign  by  hereditary 
right :  none  could  deny  that  the  holy  Church  had  before 
sought  and  might  again  seek  a  defender  elsewhere.  And 
since  the  need  of  such  defence  had  originated  the  '  trans- 
ference of  the  Empire  from  the  Greeks  to  the  Franks,'  since 
to  render  such  defence  was  the  Emperor's  chief  function, 
the  Pope  might  surely  hold  it  to  be  his  duty  as  well  as 
his  right  to  see  that  the  candidate  was  capable  of  fulfilling 
his  task,  to  reject  him  if  he  neglected  or  misperformed  it. 

Hiidebran-  The  first  step  was  to  remove  a  blemish  in  the  constitu- 
tion of  the  Church,  by  fixing  a  defined  body  to  choose 
the  supreme  pontiff.  This  Nicholas  II  did  in  A.D.  1059, 
under  the  counsel  and  impulse  of  the  archdeacon  Hilde- 
brand.  His  decree  vested  the  election  in  the  college  of 
cardinals,  while  it  contemplated  the  subsequent  assent  of 
the  clergy  and  people  of  Rome  and  reserved  the  rights 
of  Henry  IV  and  more  vaguely  of  his  successors.11  Then 
the  reforming  spirit,  kindled  by  the  abuses  and  depravity 
of  the  last  century,  advanced  apace.  Directed  by  Hilde- 
brand,  who  after  having  exerted  a  predominant  influence 
during  two  pontificates  himself  became  Pope  as  Gregory 
the  Seventh  in  A.D.  1073,  it  strove  for  two  main  objects 
—  the  enforcement  of  celibacy,  especially  on  the  secular 
clergy,  who  enjoyed  in  this  respect  considerable  freedom  ; 
and  the  extinction  of  simony.1  In  the  former,  the  Em- 

h  Even  Hildebrand  when  elected  recognized  these  rights. 

It  was  at  this  time  (A.D.  1059)  that  the  same  Pope,  by  investing  the 
Norman  Robert  Wiscard  with  the  title  of  duke  of  Apulia  and  Calabria 
as  a  fief  of  the  Holy  See,  provided  for  his  successors  in  the  chair  of  Feter  an 
ally  whose  help  was  to  prove  invaluable  to  them. 

*  The  sin  of  Simon  (Acts  viii.  18-24)  was  deemed  to  include  the  employ- 
ment of  any  corrupt  means  to  obtain  preferment  to  an  ecclesiastical  office. 


STRUGGLE   OF   EMPIRE   AND   PAPACY  159 

perors  and  part  of  the  laity  were  not  unwilling  to  join:  CHAP.X. 
the  latter  no  one  dared  to  defend  in  theory.  But  when  A.D.  1075. 
Gregory  declared  that  it  was  sin  for  the  ecclesiastic  to 
receive  his  benefice  under  conditions  frcm  a  layman,  and 
so  condemned  the  whole  system  of  the  feudal  investitures 
of  land  to  the  clergy,  he  aimed  a  deadly  blow  at  the 
authority  of  every  secular  ruler.  Half  of  the  land  and 
wealth  of  Germany  was  in  the  hands  of  bishops  and 
abbots,  who  would  now  be  freed  from  the  Emperor's 
control  to  pass  under  that  of  the  Pope.  In  such  a  state 
of  things  government  itself  would  be  impossible. 

Henry  and  Gregory  already  mistrusted  each  other:  Henry iv 
after  this  decree  war  was  inevitable.  The  Pope  cited  his  a*  ^7 
opponent  to  appear  and  be  judged  at  Rome  for  his  vices 
and  misgovernment.  The  Emperor j  replied  by  convoking 
a  synod,  which  deposed  and  insulted  Gregory.  At  once 
the  dauntless  monk  pronounced  Henry  excommunicate, 
and  fixed  a  day  on  which,  if  still  unrepentant,  he  should 
cease  to  reign.  Supported  by  his  own  princes,  the  mon- 
arch might  have  defied  a  command  backed  by  no  external 
force  ;  but  the  Saxons,  never  contented  since  the  first 
place  had  passed  from  their  own  dukes  to  the  Franconians, 
only  waited  the  signal  to  burst  into  a  new  revolt,  whilst 
through  all  Germany  the  Emperor's  tyranny  and  irregulari- 
ties of  life  had  sown  the  seeds  of  disaffection.  Shunned, 
betrayed,  threatened,  he  rushed  into  what  -seemed  the 
only  course  left,  and  Canosa  saw  Europe's  mightiest  A.D.  1077. 
prince,  titular  lord  of  the  world,  a  suppliant  before  the 
successor  of  the  Apostle.  Henry  soon  found  that  his 
humiliation  had  not  served  him  ;  driven  back  into  oppo- 
sition, he  defied  Gregory  anew,  set  up  an  anti-pope,  over- 
threw the  rival  whom  his  rebellious  subjects  had  raised, 

J  Strictly  speaking,  Henry  was  at  this  time  only  king  of  the  Romans :  he 
was  not  crowned  Emperor  at  Rome  till  1084. 


160  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  x.  and  maintained  to  the  end  of  his  sad  and  chequered  life 
a  power  often  depressed  but  never  destroyed.  Neverthe- 
less had  all  other  humiliation  been  spared,  that  one  scene 
in  the  yard  of  the  Countess  Matilda's  castle,  an  imperial 
penitent  standing  barefoot  and  woollen-frocked  on  the 
snow,  till  the  priest  who  sat  within  should  admit  and  ab- 
solve him,  was  enough  to  mark  a  decisive  change,  and 
inflict  an  irretrievable  disgrace  on  the  crown  so  abased.* 
Its  wearer  could  no  more,  with  the  same  lofty  confidence, 
claim  to  be  the  highest  power  on  earth,  created  by  and 
answerable  to  God  alone.  Gregory  had  extorted  the  rec- 
ognition of  that  absolute  superiority  of  spiritual  authority 
which  he  was  wont  to  assert  so  sternly,  proclaiming  that 
to  the  Pope,  as  God's  Vicar,  all  mankind  are  subject,  and 
all  rulers  responsible,  so  that  he,  the  giver  of  the  crown, 
may  also  excommunicate  and  depose.  And  he  discovered 
a  simile  which  played  a  great  part  in  subsequent  contro- 
versy, a  simile  so  happily  suited  to  the  modes  of  thought 
of  the  Middle  Ages  that  no  one  dreamt  of  denying  that 
it  expressed  the  meaning  of  Scripture  and  the  purpose  of 
the  Creator.  Writing  to  William  the  Conqueror,  king  of 
England,  he  says : l  "  For  as  for  the  beauty  of  this  world, 
that  it  may  be  at  different  seasons  perceived  by  fleshly 
eyes,  God  hath  disposed  the  Sun  and  the  Moon,  lights 
that  outshine  all  others ;  so  lest  the  creature  whom  His 
goodness  hath  formed  after  His  own  image  in  this  world 

k  The  castle  of  Canosa,  of  which  only  scanty  ruins  remain,  stood  on  one  of 
the  northern  outliers  of  the  Apennines,  some  ten  miles  S.W.  of  Reggio 
(Modenese). 

Lambert's  account  of  the  penitence,  which  he  makes  to  last  for  three  days, 
has  recently  been  called  in  question :  see  Holder  Egger,  Studien  zu  Lambert 
von  Herzfeld  in  Neues  Archiv  der  Geselhchaft  fur  alter e  deutsche  Geschichts- 
kunde  (vol.  xix,  1894). 

1  Letter  of  Gregory  VII  to  William  I,  A.D.  1080.  —  Jaff6,  Monuments. 
Gregoriana,  p.  419. 


STRUGGLE   OF   EMPIRE  AND   PAPACY  161 

should  be  drawn  astray  into  fatal  dangers,  He  hath  pro-  CHAP,  x, 
vided  in  the  apostolic  and  royal  dignities  the  means  of 
ruling  it  through  divers  offices.  ...     If  I,  therefore,  am 
to  answer  for  thee  on  the  dreadful  day  of  judgment  before 
the  just  Judge  who  cannot  lie,  the  creator  of  every  crea- 
ture, bethink  thee  whether  I  must  not  very  diligently  pro-     . 
vide  for  thy  salvation,  and  whether,  for  thine  own  safety, 
thou  oughtest  not  without  delay  to  obey  me,  that  so  thou 
mayest  possess  the  land  of  the  living.' 

Gregory  was  not  the  inventor  or  first  propounder  of  these 
doctrines ;  they  had  been  before  his  day  a  part  of  mediaeval 
Christianity,  interwoven  with  its  most  vital  doctrines.  Six 
centuries  earlier  Pope  Gelasius  I  had  implicitly  stated  them 
in  a  letter  enjoining  obedience  on  the  Emperor  Anastasius. 
They  were  held  by  many  others  in  Gregory's  day,  and  ex- 
pressed with  a  more  militant  vehemence  by  his  contempo- 
rary and  friend  Alfanus  of  Salerno.™  But  Gregory  was 
the  first  who  dared  to  apply  them  to  the  world  as  he  found 
it.  His  was  that  rarest  and  grandest  of  gifts,  an  intellectual 
courage  and  power  of  imaginative  belief  which,  when  it  has 
convinced  itself  of  aught,  accepts  it  fully  with  all  its  con- 
sequences, and  shrinks  not  from  acting  at  once  upon  it. 
A  perilous  gift,  as  the  melancholy  end  of  his  own  career 
proved,  for  men  were  found  less  ready  than  he  had  thought 
them  to  follow  out  with  unswerving  consistency  like  his  the 
principles  which  all  acknowledged.  But  it  was  the  very 
suddenness  and  boldness  of  his  policy  that  secured  the  ulti- 
mate triumph  of  his  cause,  awing  men's  minds  and  making 
that  seem  realized  which  had  been  till  then  a  vague  theory. 
His  premises  once  admitted  —  and  no  one  dreamt  of  deny- 
ing them  —  the  reasonings  by  which  he  established  the 
superiority  of  spiritual  to  temporal  jurisdiction  were  un- 

m  See  as  to  Gelasius  and  Alfanus,  and  as  to  the  view  held  by  moderate 
churchmen,  Note  XI  at  end. 

M 


162  THE   HOLY   ROiMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  X.  assailable.  With  his  authority,  in  whose  hands  are  the 
keys  of  heaven  and  hell,  whose  word  can  bestow  eternal 
bliss  or  plunge  in  everlasting  misery,  no  earthly  potentate 
can  compete  or  interfere.  If  his  power  extends  into  the 
infinite,  how  much  more  must  he  be  supreme  over  things 
finite  ?  It  was  thus  that  Gregory  and  his  successors  were 
wont  to  argue  :  the  wonder  is,  not  that  they  were  obeyed, 
but  that  they  were  not  obeyed  more  implicitly.  In  the 
second  sentence  of  excommunication  which  Gregory  passed 
upon  Henry  the  Fourth  are  these  words  :  — 

'Come  now,  I  beseech  you,  O  most  holy  and  blessed 
Fathers  and  Princes,  Peter  and  Paul,  that  all  the  world 
may  understand  and  know  that  if  ye  are  able  to  bind  and 
to  loose  in  heaven,  ye  are  likewise  able  on  earth,  according 
to  the  merits  of  each  man,  to  give  and  to  take  away  em- 
pires, kingdoms,  princedoms,  marquisates,  duchies,  count- 
ships,  and  the  possessions  of  all  men.  For  if  ye  judge 
spiritual  things,  what  must  we  believe  to  be  your  power 
over  worldly  things  ?  and  if  ye  judge  the  angels  who  rule 
over  all  proud  princes,  what  can  ye  not  do  to  their  slaves  ? ' 

Results  of  the  Doctrines  such  as  these  do  indeed  strike  equally  at  all 
temporal  governments,  nor  were  the  Innocents  and  Boni- 
faces of  later  days  slow  to  apply  them  so.  On  the  Empire, 
however,  the  blow  fell  first  and  heaviest.  As  when  Alarich 
entered  Rome,  the  spell  of  ages  was  broken,  Christendom 
saw  its  stateliest  and  most  venerable  institution  dishonoured 
and  helpless ;  allegiance  was  no  longer  undivided,  for  who 
could  presume  to  fix  in  each  case  the  limits  of  the  civil  and 
ecclesiastical  jurisdictions  ?  The  potentates  of  Europe 
beheld  in  the  Papacy  a  force  which,  if  dangerous  to  them- 
selves, could  be  made  to  repel  the  pretensions  and  baffle 
the  designs  of  the  strongest  and  haughtiest  among  them. 
Italy  learned  how  to  meet  the  Teutonic  conqueror  by  gain- 
ing papal  sanction  for  the  leagues  of  her  cities.  The  Ger- 


STRUGGLE    OF   EMPIRE   AND    PAPACY  163 

man  princes,  anxious  to  narrow  the  prerogative  of  their  CHAP.  x. 
head,  were  the  natural  allies  of  his  enemy,  whose  spiritual 
thunders,  more  terrible  than  their  own  lances,  could  enable 
them  to  depose  an  aspiring  monarch,  or  extort  from  him 
any  concessions  they  desired.  Their  altered  tone  is  marked 
by  the  promise  they  required  from  Rudolf  of  Swabia,  whom,  A.D.  1077. 
at  the  Pope's  suggestion,  they  set  up  as  a  rival  to  Henry, 
that  he  would  not  endeavour  to  make  the  throne  hereditary. 
It  is  not  possible  here  to  dwell  on  the  details  of  the  great 
struggle  of  the  Investitures,  rich  as  it  is  in  the  interest  of 
adventure  and  character,  momentous  as  were  its  results 
for  the  future.  A  word  or  two  must  suffice  to  describe 
the  conclusion,  not  indeed  of  the  whole  drama,  which  was 
to  extend  over  centuries,  but  of  what  may  be  called  its 
first  act.  Even  that  act  lasted  beyond  the  lives  of  the 
original  performers.  Gregory  the  Seventh  passed  away  at 
Salerno  in  A.D.  1085,  exclaiming  with  his  last  breath,  '  I 
have  loved  justice  and  hated  iniquity,  therefore  I  die  in 
exile.'  Twenty-one  years  later  Henry  IV  died,  dethroned  A.D.  1106. 
by  an  unnatural  son  whom  the  hatred  of  a  relentless  pontiff 
had  raised  in  rebellion  against  him.  But  that  son,  the 
Emperor  Henry  the  Fifth,  so  far  from  conceding  the 
points  in  dispute,  proved  an  antagonist  more  ruthless  and 
not  less  able  than  his  father.  He  claimed  for  his  crown  all 
the  rights  over  ecclesiastics  that  his  predecessors  had  ever 
enjoyed,  and  when  at  his  coronation  in  Rome,  A.D.  mi, 
Pope  Paschal  II  refused  to  complete  the  rite  until  he  should 
have  yielded,  Henry  seized  both  Pope  and  cardinals  and 
compelled  them  by  a  rigorous  imprisonment  to  consent  to  a 
treaty  which  he  dictated.  Once  set  free,  the  Pope,  as  was 
natural,  disavowed  his  extorted  concessions,  and  the  strug- 
gle was  protracted  for  ten  years  longer,  until  nearly  half 
a  century  had  elapsed  from  the  first  quarrel  between  Greg- 
ory VII  and  Henry  IV.  The  Concordat  of  Worms,  con- 


164 


THE    HOLY   ROMAN    EMPIRE 


CHAP.  X. 

Concordat 
of  Worms, 
A.D.  1122. 


TAe  Cru- 
sades. 


eluded  between  Pope  Calixtus  II  and  Henry  V,  provided 
for  the  freedom  of  ecclesiastical  elections  and  the  renuncia- 
tion by  the  Emperor  of  investiture  by  the  ring  and  the 
crozier,  but  it  left  to  him  the  right  of  investing  the  clergy 
with  all  temporalities  by  the  sceptre,  and  the  right  to  re- 
quire from  them  (except  those  who  held  directly  from  the 
Pope)  the  performance  of  their  duties  as  feudal  vassals. 
This  settlement  was  in  form  a  compromise,  designed  to 
spare  either  party  the  humiliation  of  defeat.  Yet  the 
Papacy  remained  master  of  the  field.  The  Emperor  re- 
tained but  one-half  of  those  rights  of  investiture  which 
had  formerly  been  his.  He  could  never  resume  the  posi- 
tion of  Henry  III ;  his  wishes  or  intrigues  might  influence 
the  proceedings  of  a  chapter,  his  oath  bound  him  from  open 
interference.  He  had  entered  the  strife  in  the  fullness  of 
dignity ;  he  came  out  of  it  with  tarnished  glory  and  shat- 
tered power.  His  wars  had  been  hitherto  carried  on  with 
foreign  foes,  or  at  worst  with  a  single  rebel  noble ;  now  his 
former  ally  was  turned  into  his  fiercest  assailant,  and  had 
enlisted  against  him  half  his  court,  half  the  magnates  of 
his  realm.  At  any  moment  his  sceptre  might  be  shivered 
in  his  hand  by  the  bolt  of  anathema,  and  a  host  of  enemies 
spring  up  from  every  convent  and  cathedral. 

Two  other  results  of  this  great  conflict  ought  not  to 
pass  unnoticed.  The  Emperor  was  alienated  from  the 
Church  at  the  most  unfortunate  of  all  moments,  the  era 
of  the  Crusades.  To  conduct  a  great  religious  war 
against  the  enemies  of  the  faith,  to  head  the  church 
militant  in  her  carnal  as  the  Popes  were  accustomed  to 
do  in  her  spiritual  strife,  this  was  the  very  purpose  for 
which  an  Emperor  had  been  called  into  being ;  and  it 
was  indeed  in  these  wars,  more  particularly  in  the  first 
three  of  them,  that  the  ideal  of  a  Christian  commonwealth, 
embodied  in  the  theory  of  the  mediaeval  Empire,  was 


STRUGGLE   OF  EMPIRE  AND   PAPACY  165 

once  for  all  and  never  again  realized  by  the  combined  CHAP.X. 
action  of  the  great  nations  of  Europe.  Had  such  an 
opportunity  fallen  to  the  lot  of  Henry  III,  he  might  have 
used  it  to  win  back  a  supremacy  such  as  had  belonged 
to  the  first  Carolingians.  But  Henry  IV's  proscription 
excluded  him  from  all  share  in  an  enterprise  which  he 
must  otherwise  have  led  —  nay  more,  committed  it  to  the 
guidance  of  his  foes.  The  religious  feeling  which  the 
crusades  evoked  —  a  feeling  which  became  the  origin 
of  the  great  orders  of  chivalry,  and  somewhat  later  of 
the  two  great  orders  of  mendicant  friars  —  turned  against 
the  power  which  resisted  ecclesiastical  claims,  and  was 
made  to  work  the  will  of  the  Holy  See,  which  had 
blessed  and  organized  the  project.  A  century  and  a  half 
later  the  Pope  did  not  scruple  to  preach  a  crusade 
against  the  Emperor  himself. 

Again,  it  was  now  that  the  first  seeds  were  sown  of 
that  fear  and  hatred  wherewith  many  among  the  German 
people  never  thenceforth  ceased  to  regard  the  encroaching 
Romish  court.  Branded  by  the  Church  and  forsaken 
by  the  nobles,  Henry  IV  retained  the  affections  of  the 
burghers  of  Worms  and  Li6ge.  It  soon  became  the  test 
of  Teutonic  patriotism  to  resist  Italian  priestcraft. 

The  changes  in  the  internal  constitution  of   Germany  Limitations 

f     --  TTTI  •  of  imperial 

due  to  the  long  anarchy  of  Henry  IV  s  reign  are  seen  Jprerogative> 
when  the  extent  of  the  royal  prerogative  as  it  had 
stood  at  the  accession  of  Conrad  II,  the  first  Franconian 
Emperor,  is  compared  with  its  state  at  Henry  V's  death. 
All  fiefs  are  now  hereditary,  and  when  vacant  can  be 
granted  afresh  only  by  consent  of  the  States;  the  jurisdic- 
tion of  the  crown  is  less  wide ;  the  idea  is  beginning  to 
make  progress  that  the  most  essential  part  of  the  Empire 
is  not  its  supreme  head  but  the  totality  of  princes  and 
barons.  The  greatest  triumph  of  these  feudal  magnates 


i66 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  X. 


I.othar  II, 
1125-1138. 


Conrad  III, 
1138-1152. 


is  seen  in  the  establishment  of  the  elective  principle, 
which  when  confirmed  by  the  three  free  elections  of 
Lothar  II,  Conrad  III,  and  Frederick  I,  passes  into  an 
undoubted  law.  The  Prince-Electors  are  mentioned  in 
A.D.  1156  as  a  distinct  and  important  body.n  The  bishops, 
too,  whom  the  policy  of  Otto  the  Great  and  Henry  II  had 
raised,  are  now  not  less  dangerous  than  the  dukes,  whose 
power  it  was  hoped  they  would  balance ;  possibly  more 
dangerous,  since  protected  by  their  sacred  character  and 
their  allegiance  to  the  Pope,  while  able  at  the  same  time  to 
command  the  arms  of  their  countless  vassals.  Nor  were 
the  two  succeeding  Emperors  the  men  to  retrieve  those 
disasters.  The  Saxon  Lothar  the  Second  is  the  willing 
minion  of  the  Pope ;  performs  at  his  coronation  a  menial 
service  unknown  before,  and  takes  a  more  stringent  oath 
to  defend  the  Holy  See,  that  he  may  purchase  its  sup- 
port against  the  Swabian  party  in  his  own  dominions. 
Conrad  the  Third,  the  first  Emperor  of  the  great  house 
of  Hohenstaufen,0  represents  tendencies  more  anti-papal ; 
but  domestic  troubles  and  an  unfortunate  crusade  pre- 
vented him  from  effecting  anything  in  Italy.  He  never 
even  entered  Rome  to  receive  the  crown. 

n  '  Gradum  statim  post  Principes  Electores.'  —  Frederick  I's  Privilege  of 
Austria,  in  Pertz,  M.  G.  H.,  Legg.  ii.  p.  101.  As  to  the  Electors,  see  chap. 
XIV,  post. 

0  As  to  the  castle  of  Hohenstaufen  see  Note  XII  at  end. 


CHAPTER   XI 

THE   EMPERORS    IN    ITALY  :   FREDERICK    BARBAROSSA 

THE  reign  of  Frederick  the  First,  whom  the  Italians  CHAP.  xi. 
surnamed  Barbarossa,  is  the  most  brilliant  in  the  annals  Frederick  i 
of  the  Empire.  Its  territory  had  been  wider  under  J;fJ^f*~ 
Charles,  its  strength  perhaps  greater  under  Henry  1152-1189. 
the  Third,  but  it  never  appeared  in  such  pervading 
vivid  activity,  never  shone  with  such  lustre  of  chivalry, 
as  under  the  prince  whom  his  countrymen  have  taken 
to  be  one  of  their  national  heroes,  and  who  is  still,  as 
the  half-mythic  type  of  Teutonic  character,  honoured  by 
picture  and  statue,  in  song  and  in  legend,  through  the 
breadth  of  the  German  lands.  The  reverential  fondness 
of  his  annalists  and  the  whole  tenour  of  his  life  go  far 
to  justify  this  admiration,  and  dispose  us  to  believe  that 
nobler  motives  were  joined  with  personal  ambition  in 
urging  him  to  assert  so  haughtily  and  carry  out  so  harshly 
those  imperial  rights  in  which  he  had  unbounded  con- 
fidence. Under  his  guidance  the  Transalpine  power 
made  its  greatest  effort  to  subdue  the  two  antagonists 
which  then  threatened  and  were  fated  in  the  end  to 
destroy  it  —  the  Papacy  and  the  spirit  of  municipal  inde- 
pendence in  Italy. 

Even  before  Gregory  VII's  time  it   might   have   been  His  relations 
predicted  that  two  such  potentates  as  the  Emperor  and  *^ '  Pope~ 
the    Pope,    closely   bound    together,   yet   each   with  pre- 
tensions wide  and  undefined,  must   ere   long  come   into 

167 


168  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xi.  collision.  The  boldness  of  that  great  pontiff  in  enforcing, 
the  unflinching  firmness  of  his  successors  in  maintaining, 
the  supremacy  of  clerical  authority,  inspired  their  sup- 
porters with  a  zeal  and  courage  which  more  than  com- 
pensated the  advantages  of  the  Emperor  in  defending 
rights  he  had  long  enjoyed.  On  both  sides  the  hatred 
was  soon  very  bitter.  But  even  had  men's  passions 
permitted  a  reconciliation,  it  would  have  been  found 
difficult  to  bring  into  harmony  adverse  principles,  each 
theoretically  irresistible,  yet  mutually  destructive.  As 
the  spiritual  power,  in  itself  purer,  since  exercised  over 
the  soul  and  directed  to  the  highest  of  all  ends,  eternal 
felicity,  was  entitled  to  the  obedience  of  all,  laymen  as 
well  as  clergy ;  so  the  spiritual  person,  to  whom,  accord- 
ing to  the  view  then  universally  accepted,  there  had 
been  imparted  by  ordination  a  mysterious  sanctity,  could 
not  without  sin  be  subject  to  the  lay  magistrate,  be 
installed  by  him  in  office,  be  judged  in  his  court,  and 
render  to  him  any  compulsory  service.  Yet  it  was  no 
less  true  that  civil  government  was  indispensable  to  the 
peace  and  advancement  of  society ;  and  while  it  con- 
tinued to  subsist,  another  jurisdiction  could  not  be 
suffered  to  paralyze  its  workings,  nor  one-half  of  the 
people  be  altogether  removed  from  its  control.  Thus 
the  Emperor  and  the  Pope  were  forced  into  hostility  as 
champions  of  opposite  systems,  however  fully  each  might 
admit  the  strength  of  his  adversary's  position,  however 
bitterly  he  might  bewail  the  violence  of  his  own  par- 
tisans. There  had  also  arisen  other  causes  of  quarrel, 
less  respectable  but  not  less  dangerous.  The  pontiff 
demanded  and  the  monarch  refused  the  lands  which  the 
Countess  Matilda  of  Tuscany  had  bequeathed  to  the 
Holy  See ;  Frederick  claiming  them  as  feudal  suzerain, 
the  Pope  eager  by  their  means  to  carry  out  those  schemes 


FREDERICK   I   IN   ITALY  169 

of  temporal  dominion  which  Constantine's  donation  CHAP.  xi. 
sanctioned,  and  Lothar's  apparent  renunciation  of  the 
sovereignty  of  Rome  had  done  much  to  encourage. 
As  feudal  superior  of  the  Norman  kings  of  Naples  and 
Sicily,  as  protector  of  the  towns  and  barons  of  North 
Italy  who  feared  the  German  yoke,  the  successor  of  Peter 
wore  already  the  air  of  an  independent  potentate. 

No  man  was  less  likely  than  Frederick  to  submit  to  contest  with 
these  encroachments.  He  was  a  sort  of  imperialist  Hilde-  Hadria*  1V 
brand,  strenuously  proclaiming  the  immediate  dependence 
of  his  office  on  God's  gift,  and  holding  it  every  whit  as 
sacred  as  his  rival's.  On  his  first  journey  to  Rome,  he 
refused  to  hold  the  Pope's  stirrup,*  as  Lothar  had  done, 
till  Pope  Hadrian  the  Fourth's  threat  that  he  would  with- 
hold the  crown  enforced  compliance.1*  Complaints  arising 
not  long  after  on  some  other  ground,  the  Pope  exhorted 
Frederick  by  letter  to  shew  himself  worthy  of  the  kind- 
ness of  his  mother  the  Roman  Church,  who  had  given  him 
the  imperial  crown,  and  would  confer  on  him,  if  dutiful, 
benefits  still  greater.  This  word  benefits  —  beneficia — 
understood  in  its  usual  legal  sense  of  '  fief,'  and  taken  in 
connection  with  the  picture  set  up  at  Rome  to  commemo- 
rate Lothar's  homage,  provoked  angry  shouts  from  the 
nobles  assembled  in  Diet  at  Besangon  in  Burgundy ;  and 
when  the  legate  (afterwards  Pope  Alexander  III)  answered, 

•  A  great  deal  of  importance  seems  to  have  been  attached  to  this  symbolic 
act  of  courtesy.  See  Art.  I  of  the  Sachsenspiegel.  '  Deme  pavese  is  ok  gesat 
to  ridene  to  bescedener  tiet  up  eneme  blanken  perde,  unde  de  keiser  sal  hue 
den  stegerip  halden  dur  de  sadel  nicht  ne  winde.' 

b  Hadrian  IV  (Nicholas  Breakspear),  the  only  Englishman  who  ever  be- 
came  Pope,  born  in  poverty  near  St.  Albans,  had  been  a  monk  in  the  convent 
to  which  he  came  begging  alms,  rose  to  be  abbot,  went  to  Rome  on  the 
business  of  his  house,  and  was  made  Cardinal  by  Eugenius  III.  He  it  was 
who  bestowed  Ireland  on  the  English  king  Henry  II,  all  islands  being  within 
the  jurisdiction  of  the  Holy  See. 


170 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  XI. 


With  Pope 
Alexander 
UI. 


'From  whom,  then,  if  not  from  our  Lord  the  Pope,  does 
your  king  hold  the  Empire  ? '  his  life  was  scarcely  safe 
from  their  fury.  On  this  occasion  Frederick's  vigour  and 
the  remonstrances  of  the  Transalpine  prelates  obliged 
Hadrian  to  explain  away  the  obnoxious  word,  and  remove 
the  picture.  Soon  after  the  quarrel  was  renewed  by  other 
causes,  and  came  to  centre  itself  round  the  Pope's  demand 
that  Rome  should  be  left  entirely  to  his  government. 
Frederick,  in  reply,  appeals  to  the  civil  law,  and  closes 
with  the  words,  '  Since  by  the  ordination  of  God  I  both  am 
called  and  am  Emperor  of  the  Romans,  in  nothing  but 
name  shall  I  appear  to  be  ruler  if  the  control  of  the  Roman 
city  be  wrested  from  my  hands.'  That  such  a  claim  should 
need  assertion  marks  the  change  since  Henry  III  ;  how 
much  more  that  it  could  not  be  enforced.  Hadrian's  tone 
rises  into  defiance ;  he  mingles  the  threat  of  excommuni- 
cation with  references  to  the  time  when  the  Germans 
did  not  yet  possess  the  Empire.  'What  were  the 
Franks  till  Pope  Zacharias  welcomed  Pipin  ?  What  is 
the  Teutonic  king  now  till  consecrated  at  Rome  by  holy 
hands  ?  The  chair  of  Peter  has  given  and  can  withdraw 
its  gifts.' 

The  disputed  papal  election  that  followed  Hadrian's 
death  produced  a  second  and  more  momentous  conflict. 
Frederick,  as  head  of  Christendom,  proposed  to  summon 
the  bishops  of  Europe  to  a  general  council,  over  which  he 
should  preside,  like  Justinian  or  Heraclius.  Quoting  the 
favourite  text  of  the  two  swords,  '  On  earth,'  he  continues, 
'God  has  placed  no  more  than  two  powers  :  above  there 
is  but  one  God,  so  here  one  Pope  and  one  Emperor. 
Divine  Providence  has  specially  appointed  the  Roman 
Empire  as  a  remedy  against  continued  schism.' c  The  plan 

0  Letter  to  the  German  bishops  in  Rahewin;  Bk.  iv.  ch.  5-6  (Pertz,  M.  G, 
H.t  Script,  xx.  476). 


FREDERICK    I   IN   ITALY 


171 


failed  ;  and  Frederick  adopted  the  candidate  whom  his  own  CHAP.  xi. 
faction  had  chosen,  while  the  rival  claimant,  Alexander 
III,  appealed,  with  a  confidence  which  the  issue  justified, 
to  the  support  of  sound  churchmen  throughout  Europe. 
The  keen  and  long  doubtful  strife  of  twenty  years  that 
followed,  while  apparently  a  dispute  between  rival  Popes, 
was  in  substance  an  effort  by  the  secular  monarch  to  re- 
cover his  command  of  the  priesthood,  not  less  truly  so  than 
that  contemporaneous  conflict  of  the  English  Henry  II 
and  St.  Thomas  of  Canterbury,  with  which  it  was  fre- 
quently involved.  Unsupported,  not  all  Alexander's  genius 
and  resolution  could  have  saved  him  :  with  the  aid  of  the 
Lombard  cities,  whose  league  he  had  counselled  and  hal- 
lowed, and  of  the  fevers  of  Rome,  by  which  the  conquering 
German  host  was  suddenly  annihilated,  he  won  a  triumph 
the  more  signal,  that  it  was  over  a  prince  so  wise  and  so 
pious  as  Frederick.  At  Venice,  which,  inaccessible  by  her 
position,  maintained  a  sedulous  neutrality,  claiming  to  be 
independent  of  the  Empire,  yet  seldom  led  into  war  by 
sympathy  with  the  Popes,  the  two  powers  whose  strife  had 
roused  all  Europe  were  induced  to  meet  by  the  mediation 
of  the  doge  Sebastian  Ziani.  Three  slabs  of  red  marble 
in  the  porch  of  St.  Mark's  point  out  the  spot  where  Fred- 
erick knelt  in  sudden  awe,  and  the  Pope  with  tears  of  joy 
raised  him,  and  gave  the  kiss  of  peace.  A  later  legend, 
to  which  poetry  and  painting  have  given  an  undeserved 
currency,*1  tells  how  the  pontiff  set  his  foot  on  the  neck  of 
the  prostrate  king,  with  the  words,  'The  young  lion  and 
the  dragon  shalt  thou  trample  under  feet.'6  It  needed  not 
this  exaggeration  to  enhance  the  significance  of  that 
scene,  even  more  full  of  meaning  for  the  future  than  it 

d  A  picture  in  the  great  hall  of  the  ducal  palace  (the  Sala  del  Maggior 
Consiglio)  represents  the  scene.     See  the  description  in  Rogers's  Italy. 
e  Psalm  xci.  13. 


172  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xi.  was  solemn  and  affecting  to  the  Venetian  crowd  that 
thronged  the  church  and  the  piazza.  For  it  was  the  re- 
nunciation by  the  mightiest  prince  of  his  time  of  the 
project  to  which  his  life  had  been  devoted  :  it  was  the 
abandonment  by  the  secular  power  of  a  contest  in  which 
it  had  twice  been  vanquished,  and  which  it  could  not 
renew  under  more  favourable  conditions. 

Authority  maintained  so  long  against  the  successor  of 
Peter  would  be  far  from  indulgent  to  rebellious  subjects. 
For  it  was  in  this  light  that  the  Lombard  cities  appeared 
to  a  monarch  bent  on  reviving  all  the  rights  his  predeces- 
sors had  enjoyed :  nay,  all  that  the  law  of  ancient  Rome 
gave  her  absolute  ruler.  It  would  be  wrong  to  speak  of  a 
rediscovery  of  the  civil  law.  That  system  had  never 
perished  from  Gaul  and  Italy,  had  been  the  groundwork 
of  some  codes  or  bodies  of  custom,  and  the  substance, 
modified  only  by  the  changes  in  society,  of  many  others. 
The  Church  excepted,  no  agent  did  so  much  to  keep  alive 
the  memory  of  Roman  institutions.  The  twelfth  century 
now  beheld  the  study  cultivated  with  a  surprising  increase 
of  knowledge  and  ardour,  expended  chiefly  upon  the  ex- 
tracts from  the  classical  jurists  contained  in  the  Digest  of 
the  Emperor  Justinian.  First  in  Italy  and  the  schools 
of  the  South,  then  in  Paris  and  Oxford,  they  were  ex- 
pounded, commented  on,  extolled  as  the  perfection  of  human 
wisdom,  the  sole,  true,  and  eternal  law.  Vast  as  has  been 
the  labour  and  thought  expended  from  that  time  to  this 
in  the  elucidation  of  the  civil  law,  it  is  hardly  too  much 
to  say  that  in  acuteness,  in  subtlety,  in  all  the  branches 
of  legal  science  and  art  which  can  subsist  without  help 
from  historical  knowledge  and  the  methods  of  historical 
criticism,  these  so-called  Glossatores  have  been  seldom 
equalled  and  never  surpassed  by  their  successors.  The 
teachers  of  the  canon  law,  who  had  not  as  yet  become 


FREDERICK   I   IN   ITALY  173 

the  rivals  of  the  civilian,  and  were  accustomed  to  recur  CHAP.  xi. 
to  his  books  where  their  own  were  silent,  spread  through 
Europe  the  fame  and  influence  of  the  Roman  jurispru- 
dence ;  while  its  own  professors  were  led  both  by  their 
feeling  and  their  interest  to  give  to  all  its  maxims  the 
greatest  weight  and  the  fullest  application.  Men  just 
emerging  from  barbarism,  with  minds  unaccustomed  to 
create  and  blindly  submissive  to  authority,  viewed  written 
texts  with  an  awe  to  us  incomprehensible.  All  that  the 
most  submissive  jurists  of  Rome  had  ever  ascribed  to 
their  monarchs  was  directly  transferred  to  the  Caesarean 
majesty  who  inherited  their  name.  He  was  'Lord  of 
the  world,  absolute  master  of  the  lives  and  property  of 
all  his  subjects,  that  is,  of  all  men ;  the  sole  fountain 
of  legislation,  the  embodiment  of  right  and  justice.  These 
doctrines,  which  the  great  Bolognese  jurists,  Bulgarus, 
Martinus,  Hugolinus,  and  others  who  surrounded  Fred- 
erick, taught  and  applied,  as  matter  of  course,  to  a  Teutonic, 
a  feudal  king,  were  by  the  rest  of  the  world  not  denied, 
were  accepted  in  fervent  faith  by  his  German  and  Italian 
partisans.  '  To  the  Emperor  belongs  the  protection  of  the 
whole  world,'  says  bishop  Otto  of  Freysing.  'The  Em- 
peror is  a  living  law  upon  earth. >f  To  Frederick,  at  the 
diet  of  Roncaglia,  the  archbishop  of  Milan  speaks  for  the 
assembled  magnates  of  Lombardy :  '  Do  and  ordain  what- 
soever thou  wilt,  thy  will  is  law  ;  as  it  is  written,  "  Quicquid 
principi  placuit  legis  habet  vigorem,  cum  populus  ei  et  in 
eum  omne  suum  imperium  et  potestatem  concesserit."  >g 
The  Hohenstaufen  himself  was  not  slow  to  accept  these 
magnificent  ascriptions  of  dignity,  and  though  modestly 
professing  his  wish  to  govern  according  to  law  rather  than 
override  the  law,  was  doubtless  roused  by  them  to  a  moie 

f '  Animata  lex  in  terris,'  document  of  1230,  in  Pertz,  Legg.  ii.  p.  277. 
8  Rahewin,  iv.  c.  4  (Pertz,  M.  G.  H.,  Script,  xx.  446). 


174  THE    HOLY   ROMAN    EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xi.  confident  assertion  of  a  prerogative  so  hallowed  by  age  and 
by  what  seemed  a  divine  ordinance. 

Frederick  That  assertion  was  most  loudly  called  for  in  Italy. 

The  Emperors  might  appear  to  consider  it  a  conquered 
country  without  privileges  to  be  respected,  for  they  did 
not  summon  its  princes  to  the  German  diets,  and  over- 
awed its  own  assemblies  at  Pavia  or  Roncaglia  by  the 
Transalpine  host  that  followed  them.  Its  crown,  too,  was 
theirs  whenever  they  crossed  the  Alps  to  claim  it,  while 
the  elections  on  the  banks  of  the  Rhine  might  be  adorned 
but  could  not  be  influenced  by  the  presence  of  barons 
from  the  southern  kingdom.11  In  practice,  however,  the 
imperial  power  stood  lower  in  Italy  than  in  Germany,  for 
it  had  been  from  the  first  intermittent,  depending  on  the 
personal  vigour  and  present  armed  support  of  each  in- 
vader. The  theoretic  sovereignty  of  the  Emperor-king 
was  nowise  disputed  :  in  the  cities  toll  and  tax  were  of 
right  his :  he  could  issue  edicts  at  the  Diet,  and  require 
the  tenants  in  chief  to  appear  with  their  vassals.  But  the 
revival  of  a  control  scarcely  exercised  since  Henry  IV's 
time  was  felt  as  an  intolerable  hardship  by  the  great 
Lombard  cities,  proud  of  riches  and  population  equal  to 
that  of  the  duchies  of  Germany  or  the  kingdoms  of  the 
North,  and  accustomed  for  more  than  a  century  to  a  turbu- 
lent independence.  For  republican  institutions  and  popu- 
lar freedom  Frederick  had  little  sympathy.  At  Rome  the 
people,  stirred  by  the  fervour  of  Arnold  of  Brescia,  had 
renewed,  but  with  larger  ideas,  the  attempt  of  Crescentius.1 
The  city  had  thrown  off  the  yoke  of  its  bishop,  and  a  com- 
monwealth under  consuls  and  senate  professed  to  emulate 

h  Frederick's  election  (at  Frankfort)  was  made  '  non  sine  quibusdam 
Italiae  baronibus.' — Otto  Fris.  II.  c.  I  (ibid.  p.  391).  But  this  was  the 
exception. 

1  See  as  to  Arnold's  reforms  post,  chapter  XVI. 


FREDERICK   I   IN   ITALY  175 

the  spirit  while  it  renewed  the  forms  of  the  primitive  CHAP.  xi. 
republic.  Its  leaders  had  written  to  Conrad  III,k  asking 
him  to  help  them  to  restore  the  Empire  to  its  position 
under  Constantine  and  Justinian  ;  but  the  German,  warned 
by  St.  Bernard,  had  preferred  the  friendship  of  the  Pope. 
Filled  with  a  vain  conceit  of  their  own  importance,  they 
repeated  their  offers  to  Frederick  when  he  sought  the 
crown  from  Hadrian  the  Fourth.  A  deputation,  after 
dwelling  in  highflown  language  on  the  dignity  of  the 
Roman  people,  and  their  kindness  in  bestowing  the  sceptre 
on  him,  a  Swabian  and  a  stranger,  proceeded  to  demand  a 
largess  ere  he  should  enter  the  city.  Frederick's  anger 
did  not  hear  them  to  the  end  :  '  Is  this  your  Roman  wis- 
dom ?  Who  are  ye  that  usurp  the  name  of  Roman  digni- 
ties ?  Your  honours  and  your  authority  are  yours  no 
longer ;  with  us  are  consuls,  senate,  soldiers.  It  was  not 
you  who  chose  us  to  be  rulers,  but  Charles  and  Otto  that 
rescued  you  from  the  Greek  and  the  Lombard,  and  con- 
quered by  their  own  might  the  imperial  crown.  That 
Prankish  might  is  still  the  same  :  wrench,  if  you  can,  the 
club  from  Hercules.  It  is  not  for  the  people  to  give  laws 
to  the  prince,  but  to  obey  his  command.' l  This  was 
Frederick's  version  of  the  'Translation  of  the  Empire.' m 

k  '  Excellentissimo  atque  praeclaro  urbis  et  orbis  totius  domino,  Conrado, 
Dei  gratia  Romano    regi  semper  Augusto,  S.  P.  Q.  R.  salutem   et   Romani 
imperii  felicem  et  inclitam   gubernationem.'     The  letter  winds  up  with  the 
following  lines  in  which  both  the  teachings  of  Arnold  and  the  influence  of  the 
Roman  lawyers  are  recognizable.     Cf.  Otto  Fris.  I.  c.  28  (ibid.  pp.  366-367) : 
'  Rex  valeat,  quidquid  cupit  obtineat,  super  hostes 
Imperium  teneat,  Romae  sedeat,  regat  orbem 
Princeps  terrarum,  ceu  fecit  lustinianus. 
Caesaris  accipiat  Caesar,  quae  sunt  sua  Praesul, 
Ut  Christus  iussit,  Petro  solvente  tributum ! ' 
1  Otto  Fris.  II.  c.  21  (ibid.  p.  405). 

m  Later  in  his  reign,  Frederick  condescended  to  negotiate  with  these 
Roman  magistrates  against  a  hostile  Pope,  and  entered  into  a  sort  of  treaty 
by  which  they  were  declared  exempt  from  all  jurisdiction  but  his  own. 


1/6  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xi.  He  who  had  been  so  stern  to  his  own  capital  was  not 
The  Lombard  likely  to  deal  more  gently  with  the  rebels  of  Milan  and 
Tortona.  In  the  contest  by  which  Frederick  is  chiefly 
known  to  modern  Italy,  he  is  commonly  painted  as  the 
foreign  tyrant,  the  forerunner  of  the  Austrian  oppressor,11 
crushing  under  the  hoofs  of  his  cavalry  the  home  of  free- 
dom and  industry.  Such  a  view  is  unjust  to  a  great  man 
and  his  cause.  To  the  despot  liberty  is  always  licence ; 
yet  Frederick  was  the  enforcer  of  admitted  claims ;  the 
aggressions  of  Milan  threatened  her  neighbours ;  the  re- 
fusal, where  no  actual  oppression  was  alleged,  to  admit 
his  officers  and  allow  his  regalian  rights,  seemed  a  wanton 
breach  of  oaths  and  engagements,  treason  against  God  no 
less  than  himself.0  Nevertheless  our  sympathy  must  go 
with  the  cities,  in  whose  victory  we  recognize  the  triumph 
of  freedom  and  civilization.  Their  resistance  was  at  first 
probably  a  mere  aversion  to  unused  control,  and  to  the 
enforcement  of  imposts  less  offensive  in  former  days  than 
now,  and  by  long  dereliction  apparently  obsolete.5  Re- 
publican principles  were  not  avowed,  nor  were  sentiments 
of  Italian  nationality  appealed  to.  But  the  progress  of 
the  conflict  developed  new  motives  and  feelings,  and  gave 
the  cities  clearer  notions  of  what  they  fought  for.  As  the 
Emperor's  antagonist,  the  Pope  was  their  natural  ally :  he 
blessed  their  arms,  and  called  on  the  barons  of  Romagna 

n  See  the  first  note  to  Shelley's  Hellas.  Sismondi's  history  is  largely 
answerable  for  this  conception  of  Barbarossa's  position. 

0  They  say  rebelliously,  says  Frederick,  '  Nolumus  hunc  regnare  super  nos 
...  at  nos  maluimus  honestam  mortem  quam  ut,'  &c.  —  Letter  in  Pertz, 
M.  G.  H.t  Legg.  ii.  p.  116. 

P  '  De  tribute  Caesaris  nemo  cogitabat ; 

Omnes  erant  Caesares,  nemo  censum  dabat; 
Civitas  Ambrosii,  velut  Troia,  stabat, 
Deos  parum,  homines  minus  formidabat.' 

Poems  relating  to  the   Emperor  Frederick  of    Hohenstaufen,  published  by 
Grimm. 


FREDERICK   I    IN   ITALY  177 

and   Tuscany  for  aid ;   he  made  '  The  Church '  ere   long  CHAP.  XL 

their  watchword,  and  helped  them  to  conclude  that  league 

of   mutual  support  by  means  whereof  the  party  of  the 

Italian  Guelfs  was  formed.     Another   cry,  too,  began  to 

be  heard,  hardly  less  inspiriting  than  the  last,  a  cry  that 

had  been  silent  for  thirteen  centuries,  the  cry  of  freedom 

and  municipal  self-government — freedom  little  understood 

and  terribly  abused,  self-government  which  the  cities  who 

claimed  it  for  themselves  refused  to  their  subject  allies, 

yet  both  of  them,  through  their  power  of  stimulating  effort 

and  quickening  sympathy,  as  much  nobler  than  the  harsh 

and  repressive  system  of  a  feudal  monarchy  as  the  citizen 

of  republican  Athens  had  risen  above  the  slavish  Asiatic 

or  the  brutal  Macedonian.     Nor  was  the  fact  that  Italians 

were  resisting  a  Transalpine  invader  without  its  effect. 

There  was  as  yet   no  distinct   national   feeling,  for  half 

Lombardy,  towns  as  well  as  rural  nobles,  fought  under 

Frederick;  but  events  made  the  cause  of  liberty  always 

more  clearly  the  cause  of  patriotism,  and  increased  that 

fear  and  hate  of  the  Tedescan  for  which  Italy  has  had 

such  bitter  justification. 

The  Emperor  was  for  a  time  successful :  Tortona  was  Temporary 
taken,  Milan  razed  to  the  ground,  and  her  name  apparently 
extinguished.  Greater  obstacles  had  been  overcome,  and 
a  fuller  authority  was  for  the  moment  exercised  than  in 
the  days  of  Otto  the  Great  or  Henry  the  Third.  The 
glories  of  the  first  Prankish  conqueror  were  triumphantly 
recalled,  and  Frederick  was  compared  by  his  admirers  to 
the  hero  whose  canonization  he  had  procured,  and  whom 
he  strove  in  all  things  to  imitate.*1  '  He  was  esteemed,' 
says  one,  'second  only  to  Charles  in  piety  and  justice.' 
'  We  ordain  this/  says  a  decree :  '  Ut  ad  Caroli  imitationem 

Q  Charles  the  Great  was  canonized  by  Frederick's  anti-pope  in  A.D.  1164 
and  confirmed  afterwards  by  a  Pope  of  undoubted  title. 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  xi.  ius  ecclesiarum  statum  reipublicae  incolumem  et  legum 
integritatem  per  totum  imperium  nostrum  servaremus.' r 
But  the  hold  the  name  of  Charles  had  on  the  minds  of  the 
people,  and  the  way  in  which  he  had  become,  so  to  speak, 
an  eponym  of  Empire,  has  better  witnesses  than  grave 
documents.  A  rhyming  poet  sings  :"  — 

'  Quanta  sit  potentia  vel  laus  Friderici 
Cum  sit  patens  omnibus,  non  est  opus  dici ; 
Qui  rebelles  lancea  fodiens  ultrici 
Repraesentat  Karolum  dextera  victrici.' 

The  Diet  at  Roncaglia  was  a  chorus  of  gratulations  over 
the  re-establishment  of  order  by  the  destruction  of  the 
dens  of  unruly  burghers. 

Victory  of  This  fair  sky  was  soon  clouded.  From  her  quenchless 
the  Bombard  asnes  Uprose  Milan;  Cremona,  forswearing  old  jealousies, 
helped  to  rebuild  what  she  had  destroyed,  and  the  con- 
federates, committed  to  what  seemed  an  all  but  hopeless 
strife,  clung  faithfully  together  till  on  the  field  of  Legnano 
the  Empire's  banner  went  down  before  the  carroccio  *  of 
the  free  city.  Times  were  changed  since  Aistulf  and 
Desiderius  had  trembled  at  the  distant  tramp  of  the 
Frankish  hosts.  A  new  nation  was  arising,  slowly  reared 
through  suffering  into  strength,  now  at  last  by  heroic 
deeds  conscious  of  itself.  The  power  of  Charles  had  over- 
leaped boundaries  of  nature  and  language  that  were  too 
strong  for  his  successor,  and  that  grew  henceforth  ever 
firmer,  till  they  made  the  Empire  itself  a  delusive  name. 
Frederick,  though  harsh  in  war,  and  now  baulked  of  his 
most  cherished  hopes,  could  accept  a  state  of  things  he 
had  found  it  beyond  his  power  to  change:  he  signed 

T  Ada  Condi,  ffarzhem,  iii.  p.  399. 

•  Poems  relating  to  Frederick  I,  ut  supra. 

*  The  carroccio  was  a  wagon  with  a  flagstaff  planted  on  it,  which  served  the 
Lombards  for  a  rallying-point  in  battle. 


FREDERICK   I  IN   ITALY  179 

cheerfully   and   kept   dutifully   the   peace   of    Constance,  CHAP.  xi. 
which  left   him  little   but    a  titular  supremacy  over  the 
Lombard   towns. 

At  home  no  Emperor  since  Henry  III  had  been  so  Frederick  at 
much  respected  and  so  generally  prosperous.  He  had  German 
vast  hereditary  possessions,  including,  we  are  told,  no  less 
than  four  hundred  castles.  Uniting  in  his  person  the 
Saxon  and  Swabian  families,  he  healed  on  the  northern 
side  of  the  Alps  the  long  feud  of  Welf  and  Waiblingen  : 
his  prelates  were  faithful  to  him,  even  against  Rome :  no 
turbulent  rebel  disturbed  the  public  peace.  Germany  was 
proud  of  a  hero  who  maintained  her  dignity  so  well  abroad, 
and  he  crowned  a  glorious  life  with  a  happy  death,  lead- 
ing the  van  of  Christian  chivalry  against  the  Musulman.u 
Frederick,  the  greatest  of  the  Crusaders,  as  St.  Louis  is 
the  best,  is  among  the  noblest  types  of  mediaeval  character 
in  many  of  its  shadows,  in  all  its  lights. 

Legal  in  form,  though  in  practice  sometimes  admitting  ' 
the  exercise  of  an  almost  absolute  authority,  the  govern- 
ment of  Germany  was,  like  that  of  other  feudal  kingdoms, 
restrained  chiefly  by  the  difficulty  of  coercing  refractory 
vassals.  All  depended  on  the  monarch's  character,  and 
one  so  vigorous  and  popular  as  Frederick  could  generally 
lead  the  majority  with  him  and  overawe  the  rest.  A  false 
impression  of  the  real  strength  of  his  prerogative  might 
be  formed  from  the  readiness  with  which  he  was  obeyed, 
for  this  was  largely  due  to  the  tact  which  was  happily 
united  with  his  firmness.  He  repaired  the  finances  of  the 
kingdom,  controlled  the  dukes,  introduced  a  more  splendid 
ceremonial,  endeavoured  to  exalt  the  central  power  by 
multiplying  the  nobles  of  the  second  rank,  afterwards  the 
'college  of  princes,'  and  by  trying  to  substitute  the  civil 

u  He  was  drowned  in  the  river  Kalykadnus  in  Cilicia  —  some  say  while 
crossing  it,  others  while  bathing. 


180  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xi.      Jaw  and  Lombard  feudal  code  for  the  old  Teutonic  cus- 
toms, different  in  every  province.     If  not  successful  in  this 
The  German   project,  he  fared  better  with  another.     Since  Henry  the 
cities.  Fowler's  day  towns  had  been  growing  up  through  South- 

ern and  Western  Germany,  especially  where  rivers  of- 
fered facilities  for  trade.  Cologne,  Treves,  Mentz,  Worms, 
Speyer,  Niirnberg,  Ulm,  Regensburg,  Augsburg,  were  al- 
ready considerable  cities,  not  afraid  to  beard  their  lord  or 
their  bishop,  and  promising  before  long  to  counterbalance 
the  power  of  the  territorial  oligarchy.  Policy  or  instinct 
led  Frederick  to  attach  them  to  the  throne,  enfranchising 
many,  granting,  with  municipal  institutions,  an  inde- 
pendent jurisdiction,  conferring  various  exemptions  and 
privileges ;  while  receiving  in  turn  their  good-will  and 
loyal  aid,  in  money  always,  in  men  when  need  came.  His 
immediate  successors  trode  in  his  steps,  and  thus  there 
arose  in  the  state  a  third  order,  the  firmest  bulwark,  had 
it  been  rightly  used,  of  imperial  authority ;  an  order  whose 
members,  the  Free  Cities,  were  through  many  ages  the 
centres  of  German  intellect  and  freedom,  the  only  haven 
from  the  storms  of  civil  war,  the  surest  hope  of  future 
peace  and  union.  In  them  national  congresses  used,  in 
the  dark  days  after  1815,  to  meet:  from  them  aspiring 
spirits  strove  to  diffuse  those  ideas  of  Germanic  unity  and 
free  self-government,  which  they  had  done  much  to  keep 
alive.  Out  of  so  many  flourishing  commonwealths,  four 
only1  were  spared  by  foreign  conquerors  and  faithless 
princes  till  the  day  came  which  made  them  again  the 
members  of  a  great  and  truly  German  state.  To  the 

*  Lubeck,  Hamburg,  Bremen,  and  Frankfort. 

Of  these  Frankfort  was  annexed  by  Prussia  in  1866,  and  her  three  surviv- 
ing sisters  have,  by  their  entrance  first  into  the  North  German  confederation, 
and  afterwards  (1871)  into  the  new  German  Empire,  resigned  a  part  of  their 
independence. 


EUROPE   A.D.  1189 

SHOWING 

THE  HOLY  ROMAN  EMPIRE 

AT  THE  DEATH  OF  EMPEROR  FREDERICK  I. 

The  Hoi)'  Roman  Empire 

Territories  rtnpendait  on.  the  Empire  [ZI 

Mohammedan.  Territories 

Jhdepatdent  States  coloured,  in  cutting 


English  Hilu 


The  Umbw^L  G«>jn-«pim-al  Inatiti 


FREDERICK    I   IN   ITALY  l8l 

primitive  order  of  freemen,  scarcely  existing  out  of  the  CHAP.  xi. 
towns,  except  in  Swabia  and  Switzerland,  Frederick  fur- 
ther commended  himself  by  allowing  them  to  be  admitted 
to  knighthood,  by  restraining  the  licence  of  the  nobles, 
by  imposing  a  public  peace,  by  making  justice  in  every 
way  more  accessible  and  impartial.  To  the  southwest  of 
the  green  plain  that  girdles  in  the  rock  of  Salzburg,  the 
gigantic  mass  of  the  Untersberg  frowns  over  the  road 
which  winds  up  a  long  defile  to  the  glen  and  lake  of 
Berchtesgaden.  There,  far  up  among  its  limestone  crags, 
in  a  spot  scarcely  accessible  to  human  foot,  the  peasants 
of  the  valley  point  out  to  the  traveller  the  black  mouth  of 
a  cavern,  and  tell  him  that  within  the  red-bearded  Emperor 
lies  amid  his  knights  in  an  enchanted  sleep/  waiting  the 
hour  when  the  ravens  shall  cease  to  hover  round  the  peak, 
and  the  pear-tree  blossom  in  the  valley,  to  descend  with 
his  Crusaders  and  bring  back  to  Germany  the  golden  age 
of  peace  and  strength  and  unity.  Often  in  the  evil  days 
that  followed  the  fall  of  Frederick's  house,  often  when 
tyranny  seemed  unendurable  and  anarchy  endless,  men 
thought  on  that  cavern,  and  sighed  for  the  day  when  the 
long  sleep  of  the  just  Emperor  should  be  broken,  and  his 
shield  be  hung  aloft  again  as  of  old  in  the  camp's  midst,  a 
sign  of  help  to  the  poor  and  the  oppressed. 

y  The  legend  attaches  itself  also  to  a  cave  in  the  high  and  steep  hill  of  the 
Kyffhauser  in  Thuringia  (see  Ruckert's  ballad,  which  begins  '  Der  alte  Bar- 
barossa,  der  Kaiser  Friederich').  It  is  one  which  appears  under  various 
forms  in  many  countries.  In  its  earlier  form  it  seems  to  have  related  to 
Frederick  II,  whose  return  to  Germany  was  seriously  hoped  for  as  late  as  A.D. 
1348  —  a  Swiss  annalist  writing  then  says  that  many  people  of  different  races 
declared  Frederick  II  would  appear  to  reform  the  church  whose  corruptions 
were  generally  deplored.  In  A.D.  1519  we  find  it  told  of  Frederick  I. 

The  Salzburg  pear-tree  could  be  seen  till  1871. 


CHAPTER   XII 

IMPERIAL   TITLES    AND    PRETENSIONS 

THE  era  of  the  Hohenstaufen  is  perhaps  the  fittest 
point  at  which  to  turn  aside  from  the  narrative  history  of 
the  Empire  to  speak  shortly  of  the  legal  position  which 
it  professed  to  hold  to  the  rest  of  Europe,  as  well  as  of 
certain  duties  and  observances  which  throw  a  light  upon 
the  system  it  embodied.  This  is  not  indeed  the  era  of  its 
greatest  power.  That  was  already  past.  Nor  is  it  con- 
spicuously the  era  when  its  ideal  dignity  stood  highest : 
for  that  remained  scarcely  impaired  till  three  centuries 
had  passed  away.  But  it  was  under  the  Hohenstaufen, 
owing  partly  to  the  splendid  abilities  of  the  princes  of 
that  famous  line,  partly  to  the  suddenly-gained  ascendancy 
of  the  Roman  law,  that  the  actual  power  and  the  theoreti- 
cal influence  of  the  Empire  most  fully  coincided.  There 
can  therefore  be  no  better  opportunity  for  noticing  the 
titles  and  claims  by  which  it  announced  itself  the  repre- 
sentative of  Rome's  universal  dominion,  and  for  collecting 
the  various  instances  in  which  they  were  (either  before  or 
after  Frederick's  time)  more  or  less  admitted  by  the  other 
states  of  Europe. 

The  territories  over  which  Frederick  would  have  de- 
clared his  jurisdiction  to  extend  may  be  classed  under 
four  heads  :  — 

First,  the  German  lands,  in  which,  and  in  which  alone, 
the  Emperor  was,  up  till  the  death  of  Frederick  the  Second 
(A.D.  1250),  effective  ruler. 

182 


IMPERIAL   TITLES   AND    PRETENSIONS  183 

Second,  the  non-German  districts  of  the  Holy  Empire,  CHAP.  xn. 
where  the  Emperor  was  acknowledged  as  sole  monarch, 
but  in  practice  little  regarded. 

Third,  certain  outlying  countries,  owing  allegiance  to 
the  Empire,  but  governed  by  kings  of  their  own. 

Fourth,  the  other  states  of  Europe,  whose  rulers,  while 
admitting  the  superior  rank  of  the  Emperor,  were  virtually 
independent  of  him. 

Thus  within  the  actual  boundaries  of  the  Holy  Empire  Limits  of  the 
were  included  only  districts  coming  under  the  first  and  EmPire- 
second  of  the  above  classes,  i.e.  Germany,  Northern  Italy, 
and  the  kingdom  of  Burgundy  or  Aries  —  that  is  to  say, 
Provence,  Dauphine,  the  Free  County  of  Burgundy 
(Franche  Comte),  and  what  is  now  Western  Switzerland. 
Lorraine,  Alsace,  the  rest  of  Switzerland  and  the  Low 
Countries  were  of  course  parts  of  Germany.  To  the 
north-east,  Bohemia  and  the  Slavic  principalities  in 
Mecklenburg  and  Pomerania  were  as  yet  not  integral 
parts  of  its  body,  but  rather  dependent  outliers.  Beyond 
the  Mark  of  Brandenburg,  from  the  Oder  to  the  Vistula, 
dwelt  pagan  Lithuanians  or  Prussians,*  free  till  the  estab- 
lishment among  them  of  the  Teutonic  Knights,  which 
took  place  with  the  approval  of  Frederick  II  in  1228-40. 

Hungary  had  owed  a  doubtful  allegiance  since  the  days  Hungary. 
of  Otto  I.  Gregory  VII  had  claimed  it  as  a  fief  of  the 
Holy  See ;  Frederick  wished  to  reduce  it  completely  to 
subjection,  but  could  not  overcome  the  reluctance  of  his 
nobles.  After  Frederick  II,  by  whom  it  was  recovered 
from  the  Mongol  hordes,  no  imperial  claims  were  made 
for  so  many  years  that  at  last  they  became  obsolete,  and 

•  '  Pruzzi,'  says  the  biographer  of  St.  Adalbert,  '  quorum  Deus  est  venter 
et  avaritia  iuncta  cum  morte.'  —  Pertz,  M.  G.  H.,  Scriptores,  iv.  p.  593  (c.  27). 

It  is  odd  that  this  non-Teutonic  people  should  have  given  their  name  to 
the  great  German  kingdom  of  the  present. 


1 84 


CHAP.  xii.  were  confessed  to  be  so  by  the  Constitution  of  Augsburg, 
A.D.  I566.b 

Poland.  Under  Duke  Misico,  Poland  had  submitted  to  Otto  the 

Great,  and  continued,  with  occasional  revolts,  to  obey  the 
Empire,  till  the  beginning  of  the  Great  Interregnum  (as  it 
is  called)  in  1254.  Its  duke  was  present  at  the  election 
of  Richard,  A.D.  1257.  Thereafter,  in  1295,  Duke  Primis- 
las  had  himself  crowned  king  in  token  of  emancipation  (for 
the  title  of  king  which  Otto  III  had  granted  to  Boleslas  I 
had  become  disused)  and  the  country  became  independent, 
though  some  of  its  provinces  were  long  afterwards  reunited 
to  the  German  state.  Silesia,  originally  Polish,  was  at- 
tached to  Bohemia  by  Charles  IV,  and  so  became  part  of 
the  Empire ;  Posen  and  Galicia  were  seized  by  Prussia 
and  Austria  respectively,  A.D.  1772.°  Down  to  her  parti- 
tion in  that  year,  the  constitution  of  Poland  remained  in 
some  points  a  copy  of  that  which  had  existed  in  the  Ger- 
man kingdom  of  the  twelfth  century. 

Denmark.  Lewis  the  Pious  had  received  the  homage  of  the  Danish 

king  Harold,  on  his  baptism  at  Mentz,  A.D.  826 ;  Otto  the 
Great's  victories  over  Harold  Blue  Tooth  made  the  country 
subject,  and  added  the  Mark  of  Schleswig  to  the  Empire  : 
but  the  boundary  soon  receded  to  the  Eyder,  on  whose 
banks  might  be  seen  the  inscription, — 

'  Eidora  Romani  terminus  imperii.' 

b  Conring,  De  Finibus  Imperii.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  observe  that  the 
connection  of  Hungary  with  the  Hapsburgs  is  of  comparatively  recent  origin, 
and  of  a  purely  dynastic  nature.  The  position  of  the  archdukes  of  Austria 
as  kings  of  Hungary  had  nothing  to  do  legally  with  the  fact  that  many  of 
them  were  also  chosen  Emperors,  although  practically  their  possession  of  the 
imperial  crown  had  greatly  aided  them  in  grasping  and  retaining  the  thrones 
of  Hungary  and  Bohemia. 

c  They  however  did  not  become  incorporated  with  the  Empire,  being  held 
by  the  houses  of  Hohenzollern  and  Hapsburg  respectively  as  parts  of  theif 
extra-imperial  dominions. 


IMPERIAL   TITLES   AND   PRETENSIONS  185 

King    Peter d  attended  at   the    Diet    held    at    Merseburg  CHAP,  xn 

shortly  after  Frederick  I's  coronation,  and  received  from 

the  Emperor,  who  as  suzerain  had  been  required  to  decide 

a  disputed  question  of  succession  to  the  Danish  throne, 

his  own  crown ;  he  did  homage,  and  bore  the  sword  before 

the    Emperor.     Since   the  Great   Interregnum   Denmark 

has  been  always  free.6 

Otto  the  Great  was  the  last  Emperor  whose  suzerainty  France. 
the  West  Frankish  kings  had  admitted  ;  nor  were  Henry 
VI  and  Otto  IV  successful  in  their  attempts  to  enforce  it. 
Boniface  VIII,  in  his  quarrel  with  Philip  the  Fair,  offered 
the  French  throne,  which  he  had  pronounced  vacant,  to 
Albert  I ;  but  the  wary  Hapsburg  declined  the  dangerous 
prize. f  The  superiority,  however,  which  the  Germans 
continued  to  assert,  irritated  Gallic  pride,  and  led  to  more 
than  one  contest.  Charles  V  of  France  gave  the  Emperor 
Charles  IV  black  horses  on  which  to  ride  into  Paris,  when 
the  latter  paid  him  a  visit  there,  himself  riding  a  white 
horse,  because  the  custom  of  the  Emperors  had  been,  so 
says  the  chronicler,  to  enter  their  cities  on  a  white  charger. 
French  jurists  steadily  insisted  that  their  king  held  from 
God  alone.  Blondel  denies  the  Empire  any  claim  to  the 
Roman  name ;  and  in  A.D.  1648  the  French  envoys  at 
Miinster  refused  for  some  time  to  admit  that  precedence 
of  the  imperial  envoys  which  no  other  European  state  dis- 
puted. Till  recent  times  the  title  of  the  Archbishop  of 
Treves,  '  Archicancellarius  per  Galliam  atque  regnum  Are- 
latense,'  preserved  the  memory  of  an  obsolete  supremacy 

d  Letter  of  Frederick  I  to  Otto  of  Freysing,  prefixed  to  the  latter's  History, 
M.  G.  H.,  Serif  tores,  xx.  p.  347.  This  king  is  also  called  Svend. 

e  See  Appendix,  Note  B. 

fln  A.D.  1338  the  Emperor  Lewis  IV,  then  allied  to  the  English  Ed- 
ward III,  adjudged  to  the  latter  Normandy,  Aquitaine,  and  Anjou,  and  de- 
clared him  entitled  to  the  throne  of  France. 


1 86 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  xii.  which  the  constant  aggressions  of  France  might  seem  to 
have  reversed. 

Sweden.  No  reliance  can  be  placed  on  the  author  who  tells  us 

that  Sweden  was  granted  by  Frederick  I  to  Waldemar  the 
Dane ; g  the  fact  is  improbable,  and  we  do  not  hear  that  such 
pretensions  were  ever  put  forth  before  or  after.  Norway, 
too,  seems  to  have  been  left  untouched  —  the  Emperors 
had  no  fleets  —  and  Iceland,  which  had  remained  undis- 
covered h  till  long  after  the  days  of  Charles  the  Great,  was 
down  to  the  year  1262  the  only  absolutely  free  Republic 
in  the  world.  It  is  a  curious  illustration  of  mediaeval 
habits  of  thought  that  the  envoys  of  the  king  of  Norway, 
when  seeking  to  persuade  the  Icelandic  people  to  accept 
his  supremacy,  argued  that  monarchy  was  the  form  of 
government  divinely  ordained,  and  existed  in  every  part  of 
the  European  continent. 

Spain.  Nor  does  it  appear  that  authority  was  ever  exercised 

by  any  Emperor,  after  the  first  Carolingians,  in  Spain. 
Nevertheless  the  choice  of  Alfonso  X  by  some  of  the 
German  electors,  in  A.D.  1258,  seems  to  imply  that  the 
Spanish  kings  were  members  of  the  Empire.  And  when, 
A.D.  1053,  Ferdinand  the  Great  of  Castile  had,  in  the  pride 
of  his  victories  over  the  Moors,  assumed  the  title  of  '  His- 
paniae  Imperator,'  the  remonstrance  of  Henry  III  declared 
the  rights  of  Rome  over  the  Western  provinces  indelible, 
and  the  Spaniard,  though  protesting  his  independence,  was 
forced  to  resign  the  usurped  dignity.1 


8  Albertus  Stadensis,  M.  G.  H.,  Script,  xi.  p.  345,  s.  a.  1163. 

h  The  Scots  of  Ireland,  however,  would  seem  to  have  occasionally  visited 
it;  and  some  few  Irish  hermits  were  found  there  by  the  first  Norwegian  colo- 
nists who  landed  in  A.D.  874. 

1  There  is  an  allusion  to  this  in  the  poems  of  the  Cid.  Arthur  Duck,  De 
Usu  et  Authoritate  luris  Civilis,  quotes  the  view  of  some  among  the  older 
jurists,  that  Spain  having  been,  so  far  as  the  Romans  were  concerned,  a  res 


IMPERIAL   TITLES   AND    PRETENSIONS  187 

No  act  of  sovereignty  is  recorded  to  have  been  done  CHAP.  xn. 
by  any  of  tbe  Emperors  in  England,  though  as  heirs  of  England. 
Rome  they  might  be  thought  to  have  better  rights  over  it 
than  over  Poland  or  Denmark.3  There  was,  however,  a 
vague  notion  that  the  English,  like  other  kingdoms,  must 
depend  on  the  Empire  :  a  notion  which  appears  in  Con- 
rad Ill's  letter  to  John  of  Constantinople;*  and  which 
was  countenanced  by  the  submissive  tone  in  which  Fred- 
erick I  was  addressed  by  the  Plantagenet  Henry  II.1  Eng- 
lish independence  was  still  more  compromised  in  the  next 
reign,  when  Richard  I,  according  to  Hoveden,  'by  the 
advice  of  his  mother  Eleanor  stripped  himself  of  the  king- 
dom of  England,  and  delivered  it  over  to  the  Emperor  as 
Lord  of  the  World.'  But  as  Richard  was  at  the  same  time 
invested  with  the  kingdom  of  Aries  by  Henry  VI,  his 
homage  may  have  been  for  that  fief  only  ;  and  it  was 
probably  in  that  capacity  that  he  voted  (by  his  eight 
deputies),  as  a  prince  of  the  Empire,  at  the  election  of 
Frederick  II.  The  case  finds  a  parallel  in  the  claims  of 
England  over  the  Scottish  king,  doubtful,  to  say  the  least, 
as  regards  the  domestic  realm  of  the  latter,  certain  as 

derelicta,  recovered  by  the  Spaniards  themselves  from  the  Moors,  and  thus 
acquired  by  occupatio,  ought  not  to  be  subject  to  the  Emperors. 

J  One  of  the  greatest  of  English  kings  appears  performing  an  act  of  cour- 
tesy to  the  Emperor  which  was  probably  construed  into  an  acknowledgement 
of  his  own  inferior  position.  Describing  the  Roman  coronation  of  the  Em- 
peror Conrad  II,  Wippo  (c.  16),  M.  G,  ff.,  Script,  xi.  p.  265,  tells  us,  '  His 
ita  peractis  in  duorum  regum  praesentia  Ruodolfi  regis  Burgundiae  et  Chnu- 
tonis  regis  Anglorum  divino  officio  finito  imperator  duorum  regum  medius  ad 
cubiculum  suum  honorifice  ductus  est.' 

k  Letter  in  Otto  Fris.  i.  c.  23  (M.  G.  ff.,  Script,  xx.  p.  363)  :  '  Francia  et 
Hispania,  Anglia  Dania  ceteraque  regna  .  .  .  cum  debita  reverentia  et  obse- 
quio  nos  frequentant.' 

1  Letter  in  Rahewin,  iii.  c.  7  (M.  G.  H.,  Script,  xx.  p.  419),  says,  '  Reg- 
num  nostrum  vobis  exponimus.  .  .  .  Vobis  imperandi  cedat  auctoritas,  nobis 
non  deerit  voluntas  obsequendi.' 


1 88  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

regards  Cumbria,  which  he  had  long  held  from  the  South- 
ern crown. m  But  Germany  had  no  Edward  I.  Henry  VI 
is  said  at  his  death  to  have  released  Richard  from  his  sub- 
mission n  (this  too  may  be  compared  with  Richard's  release 
to  the  Scottish  king  William  the  Lion),  and  Edward  II 
declared  the  kingdom  of  England  to  be  wholly  free  from 
all  subjection  to  the  Empire.0  Yet  the  notion  survived  : 
the  Emperor  Lewis  the  Bavarian,  when  he  named  Edward 
III  his  vicar  in  the  great  war  between  France  and  England, 
demanded,  though  in  vain,  that  the  English  monarch 
should  kiss  his  feet,p  and  the  election  of  Edward  as 
Emperor  after  the  death  of  Lewis  carried  with  it  an  impli- 
cation that  England  was  still  in  a  certain  sense  a  part  of 
the  Empire.  The  Emperor  Sigismund,Q  visiting  Henry  V 
at  London,  at  the  time  of  the  meeting  of  the  council  of 
Constance,  was  met  by  the  Duke  of  Gloucester,  who,  riding 
into  the  water  to  the  ship  where  the  Emperor  sat,  required 

m  '  Consilio  Alianor  matris  suae,  deposuit  se  de  regno  Angliae  et  tradidit 
illud  imperatori  (Henrico  VIto)  sicut  universorum  domino,  et  investivit  eum 
inde  per  pilleum  suum,  sed  imperator,  sicut  prolocutum  est,  statim  reddidit 
ei  in  conspectu  magnatum  Alemanniae  et  Angliae,  regnum  Angliae  praedictum 
tenendum  de  ipso  pro  quinque  millibus  librarum  sterlingorum  singulis  annis 
de  tributo  solvendis,  et  investivit  eum  inde  imperator  per  duplicem  crucem  de 
auro.  Sed  idem  imperator  in  morte  sua  de  omnibus  his  et  aliis  conventioni- 
bus  quietum  clamavit  ipsum  Ricardum  regem  Angliae  et  heredes  suos.'  — 
Hoveden,  Chronicon,  ad  ann.  1193,  ed.  Stubbs,  Rolls  Series,  vol.  iii.  pp. 
202-203.  The  alleged  instances  of  homage  by  the  Scots  to  the  Saxon  and 
early  Norman  kings  are  almost  all  complicated  in  some  such  way.  The  Scot- 
tish kings  had  once  held  also  the  earldom  of  Huntingdon  from  the  English 
crown,  and  some  have  supposed  (but  on  no  sufficient  grounds)  that  homage 
was  also  done  by  them  for  Lothian. 

n  Hoveden,  ut  supra. 

0  '  Regnum   Angliae  ab  omni  subiectione  imperiali   esse  liberrimum.'  — 
Selden,  Titles  of  Honour,  part  i.  chap.  ii. 

P  Edward  refused  upon  the  ground  that  he  was  '  rex  inunctus.' 

1  Sigismund  had  shortly  before  given  great  offence  in  France  by  dubbing 
knights. 


IMPERIAL  TITLES   AND   PRETENSIONS  189 

him,  at  the  sword's  point,  to  declare  that  he  did  not  come  CHAP.  xn. 
purposing  to  infringe  on  the  king's  authority  in  the  realm 
of  England.1  One  curious  pretension  of  the  imperial  crown 
called  forth  many  protests.  It  was  declared  by  civilians 
and  canonists  that  no  notary  public  could  have  any  stand- 
ing, or  attach  any  legality  to  the  documents  he  drew  or 
attested,  unless  he  had  received  his  diploma  either  from 
the  Emperor  or  from  the  Pope.  A  strenuous  denial  of 
a  doctrine  so  injurious  was  issued  by  the  parliament  of 
Scotland  under  James  III.8 

No  Roman  soldier  ever  trod  the  soil  of  Ireland,  nor  Ireland. 
did  any  mediaeval  emperor  ever  exercise  any  authority 
there.  But  even  in  Ireland  the  influence  of  the  imperial 
idea  was  felt.  In  that  isle,  before  the  Anglo-Norman  in- 
vasion of  the  twelfth  century,  a  chieftain  or  magnate  whose 
wealth  consisted  in  cattle,  was  accustomed  to  give  them 
out  among  his  dependants  to  be  pastured ;  and  thus  the 
expression  '  to  receive  stock '  from  any  one  came  to  denote 
the  holding  of  a  subordinate  or  vassal  position,  similar  to 
that  of  the  feudal  tenant  who  receives  land  as  a  beneficium 
from  his  lord.  Now  the  Brehon  law,  after  shewing  how 
the  inferior  princes  may  receive  stock  from  the  King  of 
Erin  —  the  Ard  Righ  or  supreme  king  of  the  whole  island 
(who,  however,  even  when  he  existed,  had  little  more  than 
a  titular  authority)  —  goes  on  to  say,  '  When  the  King  of 
Erin  is  without  opposition  (i.e.  when  he  holds  Dublin, 
Waterford,  and  Limerick,  the  three  chief  ports  which 

r  Sigismund  answered,  '  Nihil  se  contra  superioritatem  regis  praetexere.' 
Some  have  doubted  the  story. 

'  Selden,  Titles  of  Honour,  part  i.  chap,  ii :  '  Our  Souverain  Lord  hes  full 
jurisdiction  and  Free  Empire  within  his  Realme,  that  his  Hienesse  may  make 
Notares  and  Tabelliones  quahis  instruments  sail  have  full  faith  in  all  con- 
tracts and  causes  within  the  Realme.'  Nevertheless,  notaries  in  Scotland,  as 
elsewhere,  continued  for  a  long  time  to  style  themselves  '  Ego  M.  auctoritate 
imperiali  (or  papali)  notarius.' 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  xii.  were  often  in  the  hands  of  Norsemen  or  Danes),  he  re- 
ceives stock  from  the  King  of  the  Romans,'  i.e.  the  Em- 
peror. And  one  commentator  (probably  a  cleric)  adds 
that  sometimes  it  is  the  Successor  of  Patrick  (i.e.  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Armagh)  who  gives  stock  to  the  King  of  Erin, 
thereby  setting  the  Primate  of  Ireland  in  the  position 
above  the  Emperor  which  the  theory  of  high  Papalists  in 
continental  Europe  assigned  to  the  Pope* 

Naples.  The  kingdom  of  Naples  and  Sicily,  although  of  course 

claimed  as  a  part  of  the  Empire,  was  under  the  Norman 
dynasty  (A.D.  1060-1189)  not  merely  independent,  but  the 
most  dangerous  enemy  of  the  German  power  in  Italy. 
Henry  VI,  the  son  and  successor  of  Barbarossa,  obtained 
possession  of  it  by  marrying  Constance  the  heiress  of  the 
Norman  kings.  But  both  he  and  Frederick  II  treated  it 
as  a  separate  patrimonial  state,  instead  of  incorporating  it 
with  their  more  northerly  dominions.  After  the  death  of 
Conradin,  the  last  of  the  Hohenstaufen,  it  passed  away  to 
an  Angevin,  then  to  an  Aragonese  dynasty,  continuing 
under  both  to  maintain  itself  independent  of  the  Empire, 
nor  ever  again,  except  under  the  Emperor  Charles  V,  held 
by  the  occupant  of  the  Germanic  throne. 

Venice.  One  spot  in  Italy  there  was  whose  singular  felicity  of 

situation  enabled  her  through  long  centuries  of  obscurity 
and  weakness,  slowly  ripening  into  strength,  to  maintain 
her  freedom  unstained  by  any  submission  to  the  Frankish 
and  German  Emperors.  Venice  glories  in  deducing  her 
origin  from  the  fugitives  who  escaped  from  Aquileia  when 
that  city  was  destroyed  by  Attila:  it  is  at  least  probable 
that  her  population  received  no  sensible  admixture  of 

4  See  Senchus  Mor.  ii.  225.  My  attention  was  called  to  this  by  Sir  H.  S. 
Maine :  cf.  his  Lectures  on  the  Early  History  of  Institutions,  p.  165.  Ireland 
was  the  latest  of  Western  Catholic  countries  to  recognize  the  supremacy  of 
the  Chair  of  Peter  ;  she  did  not  do  so  till  after  the  Anglo-Norman  conquest. 


IMPERIAL   TITLES   AND   PRETENSIONS  191 

Teutonic  settlers,  and  they  continued  during  the  ages  of  CHAP.  xn. 
Lombard  and  Prankish  rule  in  Italy  to  regard  the  East 
Roman  sovereign  as  the  representative  of  their  ancient 
masters.  Charles  the  Great  acknowledged  by  treaty  their 
dependence  on  the  East ;  and  in  the  tenth  century,  when 
summoned  to  submit  to  Otto  II,  they  had  said,  '  We  wish 
to  be  the  servants  of  the  Emperors  of  the  Romans '  (the 
Constantinopolitan).  Their  fleet,  joined  with  a  force  of 
Prankish  Crusaders,  overthrew  this  very  throne  in  A.D.  1204, 
but  the  pretext  of  allegiance  to  the  East  had  served  its  turn, 
and  had  aided  them  in  defying  or  evading  the  demands 
of  obedience  made  by  the  Teutonic  princes.  Alone  of  all 
the  Italian  republics,  Venice  never,  down  to  her  extinction 
by  France  and  Austria  in  A.D.  1797,  recognized  within 
her  bounds  any  secular  Western  authority  save  her  own. 

The  kings  of  Cyprus  and  Armenia  sent  to  Henry  VI  to  The  East, 
confess  themselves  his  vassals  and  ask  his  help.  Over 
remote  Eastern  lands,  where  Prankish  foot  had  never  trode, 
Frederick  Barbarossa  asserted  the  indestructible  rights  of 
Rome,  mistress  of  the  world.  A  letter  to  Saladin,  amusing 
from  its  absolute  identification  of  his  own  Empire  with 
that  which  had  sent  Crassus  to  perish  in  Parthia,  and  had 
blushed  to  see  Mark  Antony  'consulem  nostrum'  at  the 
feet  of  Cleopatra,  is  preserved  by  Hoveden  :  it  bids  the 
Soldan  withdraw  at  once  from  the  dominions  of  Rome, 
else  will  she,  with  her  new  Teutonic  defenders,  of  whom  a 
pompous  list  follows,  drive  him  from  them  with  all  her 
ancient  might.u 

u  It  is  not  necessary  to  prove  this  letter  to  have  been  the  composition  of 
Frederick  or  his  ministers.  If  it  be  (as  it  doubtless  is)  contemporary,  it  is 
equally  to  the  purpose  as  an  evidence  of  the  feelings  and  ideas  of  the  age. 
As  its  authenticity  has  been  questioned,  I  may  mention  that  it  is  to  be  found 
not  only  in  Hoveden,  but  also  in  the  '  Itinerarium  regis  Ricardi,'  in  Ralph  de 
Diceto,  and  in  the  '  Chronicon  Terrae  Sanctae.'  See  Dr.  Stubbs'  edition  of 
Hoveden,  vol.  ii.  p.  356. 


192 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  XII. 

The 

Byzantine 

Emperors. 


Dignities 
and  titles. 


Unwilling  as  were  the  great  kingdoms  of  Western 
Europe  to  admit  the  territorial  supremacy  of  the  Emperor, 
the  proudest  among  them  never  refused,  until  the  end  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  to  recognize  his  precedence  and  address 
him  in  a  tone  of  respectful  deference.  Very  different  was 
the  attitude  of  the  East  Roman  princes,  who  denied  his 
claim  to  be  an  Emperor  at  all.  The  separate  existence  of 
the  Eastern  Church  and .  Empire  was  always,  as  has  been 
said  above,  a  blemish  in  the  title  of  the  Teutonic  sover- 
eigns. But  it  was  even  more.  It  was  a  continuing  pro- 
test against  the  whole  system  of  an  Empire  Church  of 
Christendom,  centring  in  Rome,  ruled  by  the  successor 
of  Peter  and  the  successor  of  Augustus.  Instead  of  the 
one  Pope  and  one  Emperor  whom  mediaeval  theory  pre- 
sented as  the  sole  earthly  representatives  of  the  invisible 
Head  of  the  Church,  the  world  saw  itself  distracted  by  the 
interminable  feud  of  rivals,  each  of  whom  had  much  to 
allege  on  his  behalf.  It  was  easy  for  the  Latins  to  call  the 
Easterns  schismatics  and  their  Emperor  an  usurper,  but 
practically  it  was  impossible  to  dethrone  him  or  reduce 
them  to  obedience  —  indeed  the  Teutonic  sovereigns  never 
made  a  serious  claim  to  the  provinces  in  which  Greek 
was  spoken — nor  could  the  Eastern  Church  be  treated, 
even  in  controversy,  with  the  contempt  that  any  Western 
schismatics  would  have  incurred.  But  as  the  East  Roman 
Empire  is  treated  of  in  a  separate  chapter,  it  is  sufficient 
here  to  indicate  this  one  conspicuous  exception  to  the 
general  recognition  of  imperial  supremacy. 

Though  Otto  the  Great  and  his  successors  had  dropped 
all  titles  save  the  highest,  they  did  not  therefore  endeavour 
to  unite  their  several  kingdoms,  but  continued  to  go 
through  four  distinct  coronations  at  the  four  capitals  of 
their  Empire.1  These  are  concisely  given  in  the  verses 

*  See  Appendix,  Note  C. 


IMPERIAL  TITLES   AND   PRETENSIONS  193 

of    Godfrey  of  Viterbo,  a   notary   of   Frederick's   house-  CHAP.  xn. 
hold:y  — 

'  Primus  Aquisgrani  locus  est,  post  haec  Arelati, 
Inde  Modoetiae  regali  sede  locari 

Post  solet  Italiae  summa  corona  dari : 
Caesar  Romano  cum  vult  diademate  fungi 
Debet  apostolicis  manibus  reverenter  inungi.' 

By  the  crowning  at  Aachen,  the  old  Prankish  capital,  the   The  four 
monarch  became  'king';  formerly  'king  of  the  Franks,'  crowns- 
or  '  king  of  the  Eastern  Franks ' ;  now,  since  Henry  II's 
time,  'king  of  the  Romans,  always  Augustus.'     At  Monza 
(or,  more  rarely,  at  Milan)  in  later  times,  at  Pavia  in  earlier 
times,  he  became  king  of  Italy,  or  of  the  Lombards ; z  at 
Rome  he  received  the  double  crown  of  the  Roman  Empire, 
'  double,'  says  Godfrey,  as  '  urbis  et  orbis ' :  — 

'  Hoc  quicunque  tenet,  summus  in  orbe  sedet ; ' 

though  others  hold  that,  uniting  the  mitre  to  the  crown, 
it  typifies  spiritual  as  well  as  secular  authority.  The  crown 
of  Burgundy  or  the  kingdom  of  Aries,*  first  gained  by 
Conrad  II,  was  a  much  less  splendid  matter,  and  carried 
with  it  little  effective  power.  Most  Emperors  never 
assumed  it  at  all,  Frederick  I  not  till  late  in  life,  when  an 
interval  of  leisure  left  him  nothing  better  to  do.  These 
four  crowns b  furnish  matter  of  endless  discussion  to  the 

r  Godefr.  Viterb.,  Pantheon,  M.  G.  H.,   Script,  xxii.  p.  221. 

*  It  has  been  thought  that  the  taking  of  the  crown  of  Italy —  it  was  pretty 
regularly  taken  from  Henry  II's  time,  but  whether  by  Otto  II  and  Otto  III  is 
less  clear  —  was  a  recognition  of  the  separate  nationality  of  Italy.     But  the 
fact  that  there  had  been  a  separate  kingdom  in  Italy  ever  since  Alboin's  inva- 
sion made  the  crown  seem  to  give  some  fuller,  or  more  direct,  rights  to  the 
person  who  obtained  it  than  he  enjoyed  simply  as  Emperor.     Italy,  though  a 
part  of  the  Empire,  had  not  been  merged  in  Germany. 

*  See  Appendix,  Note  A. 

b  Some,  says  Marquard  Freher,  add  a  fifth  crown,  of  Germany  (making 
that  of  Aachen  Prankish),  supposed  to  belong  to  Regensburg. 


194 


THE    HOLY    ROMAN    EMPIRE 


old  writers ;  they  tell  us  that  the  Roman  was  golden,  the 
German  silver,  the  Italian  iron,  the  metal  corresponding 
to  the  dignity  of  each  realm.0  Others  say  that  that  of 
Aachen  is  iron,  and  the  Italian  silver,  and  give  elaborate 
reasons  why  it  should  be  so.d  There  seems  to  be  no  doubt 
that  the  allegory  created  the  fact,  and  that  all  three  crowns 
were  of  gold  (or  gilded  silver),  though  in  that  of  Italy  there 
was  and  is  inserted  a  piece  of  iron,  a  nail,  it  was  believed, 
of  the  true  Cross. 

Why,  it  may  well  be  asked,  seeing  that  the  Roman 
crown  made  the  Emperor  ruler  of  the  whole  habitable 
globe,  was  it  thought  necessary  for  him  to  add  to  it  minor 
dignities  which  might  be  supposed  to  have  been  already 
included  in  this  supreme  one?  The  reason  seems  to  be 
that  the  imperial  office  was  conceived  of  as  something 
different  in  kind  from  the  regal,  and  as  carrying  with  it 
not  the  immediate  government  of  any  particular  kingdom, 
but  a  general  suzerainty  over  and  right  of  controlling  all. 
Of  this  a  pertinent  illustration  is  afforded  by  an  anecdote 
told  of  Frederick  Barbarossa.  Happening  once  to  inquire 
of  the  famous  jurists  who  surrounded  him  whether  it  was 
really  true  that  he  was  '  lord  of  the  world '  (dominus 
mundi\  one  of  them  simply  assented,  another,  Bulgarus, 
answered,  'Not  as  respects  ownership'  (non  qtiantum  ad 
dominium).  In  this  dictum,  which  is  evidently  conform- 

c  'Dy  erste  ist  tho  Aken :  dar  kronet  men  mit  der  Yseren  Krone,  so  is  he 
Konig  over  alle  Dudesche  Ryke.  Dy  andere  tho  Meylan,  de  is  Sulvern,  so  is 
he  Here  der  Walen.  Dy  driidde  is  tho  Rome  ;  dy  is  guldin,  so  is  he  Keyser 
over  alle  dy  Werlt'  —  Gloss  to  the  Sachsenspiegel,  quoted  by  Pfeffinger, 
Similarly  Peter  de  Andlau. 

d  Cf.  Gewoldus,  De  Septemviratu  imperil  Romani.  One  would  expect 
some  ingenious  allegorizer  to  have  discovered  that  the  crown  of  Burgundy 
must  be,  and  therefore  is,  of  copper  or  bronze,  making  the  series  complete, 
like  the  four  ages  of  men  in  Hesiod.  But  I  have  not  been  able  to  find  any 
such. 


IMPERIAL   TITLES   AND    PRETENSIONS  195 

able  to  the  philosophical  theory  of  the  Empire,  we  have  CHAP.  xn. 
a  pointed  distinction  drawn  between  feudal  sovereignty, 
which  supposes  the  prince  original  owner  of  the  soil  of 
his  whole  kingdom,  and  imperial  sovereignty,  which  is  irre- 
spective of  place  and  exercised  not  over  things  but  over 
men,  as  God's  rational  creatures.  But  the  Emperor,  as 
has  been  said  already,  was  also  the  East  Frankish  king, 
uniting  in  himself,  to  use  the  legal  phrase,  two  wholly 
distinct  'persons,'  and  hence  he  might  acquire  more 
direct  and  practically  useful  rights  over  a  portion  of  his 
dominions  by  being  crowned  king  of  that  portion,  just  as 
a  feudal  monarch  often  came  to  be  count  of  lordships 
whereof  he  was  already  feudal  superior ;  or,  to  take  a 
better  illustration,  just  as  a  bishop  may  hold  livings  in  his 
own  diocese.  That  the  Emperors,  while  continuing  to  be 
crowned  at  Milan  and  Aachen,  did  not  in  practice  call 
themselves  kings  of  the  Lombards  and  of  the  Franks,  was 
probably  merely  because  these  titles  seemed  insignificant 
compared  to  that  of  Roman  Emperor. 

In  this  supreme  title,  as  has  been  said,  all  lesser  honours  'Emperor' 
were  blent  and  lost,  but  custom  or  prejudice  forbade  the  notas' 

•       }  sumed  hll 

German  king  to  assume  it  till  actually  crowned  at  Rome  the  Roman 
by  the  Pope.6     Matters  of  phrase  and  title  are  never  unim-  coronation- 
portant,  least  of  all  in  an  age  not  only  uncritical  but  also 
superstitiously  attached  to  forms  and  precedents  :  and  this 
restriction  had  the  most  important   consequences.      The 
reverence  for  Rome  as  the  ancient  seat  of  power,  and  the 


*  Hence  the  numbers  attached  to  the  names  of  the  Emperors  are  often 
different  in  German  and  Italian  writers,  the  latter  reckoning  neither  Henry 
the  Fowler  nor  Conrad  I.  So  Henry  III  (of  Germany)  calls  himself  '  Impera- 
tor  Henricus  Secundus ' ;  and  all  distinguish  the  years  of  their  regnum  from 
those  of  their  imperium.  Cardinal  Baronius  insists  on  calling  Henry  V 
Henry  III,  not  recognizing  Henry  IV's  coronation,  because  it  was  performed 
by  an  antipope. 


196  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xn.  sense  of  the  close  relation  between  the  temporal  and  the 
spiritual  sovereign,  created  an  association  which  soon 
became  indissoluble  between  the  office  and  title  of  Em- 
peror, and  the  crowning  in  the  City  by  the  Pope.1  'Rome,' 
says  the  biographer  of  St.  Adalbert,  '  seeing  that  she  both 
is  and  is  called  the  head  of  the  world  and  the  mistress  of 
cities,  is  alone  able  to  give  to  kings  imperial  power,  and 
since  she  cherishes  in  her  bosom  the  body  of  the  Prince 
of  the  Apostles,  she  ought  of  right  to  appoint  the  Prince 
of  the  whole  earth.'  g  The  crown  was  therefore  too  sacred 
to  be  conferred  by  any  one  but  the  supreme  Pontiff,  or 
Origin  and  in  any  city  less  august  than  the  ancient  capital.  Had  it 
results  of  this  become  hereditary  in  any  family,  Lothar  I's,  for  instance, 
or  Otto's,  this  feeling  might  have  worn  off;  as  it  was, 
each  successive  transfer  to  a  new  family  or  dynasty,  to 
Guido,  to  Otto  I,  to  Henry  II,  to  Conrad  the  Salic, 
strengthened  it.  The  force  of  custom,  tradition,  prece- 
dent, is  immense,  when  checked  neither  by  written  rules 
nor  by  free  discussion.  What  sheer  assertion  will  do  is 
shewn  by  the  success  of  a  forgery  so  gross  as  the  Pseudo- 
Isidorian  decretals,  accepted  at  first  because  it  occurred  to 
no  one,  nor  was  it  obviously  any  one's  interest,  to  contest 
their  genuineness,  accepted  afterwards,  when  their  ten- 
dency was  perceived,  because  they  had  by  this  time  found 
general  currency,  recognized  ultimately  as  valid  because 
they  had  passed  into  authorized  collections.  No  argu- 
ments are  needed  to  discredit  the  alleged  decree  of  Pope 

fFor  Sir  H.  S.  Maine's  conjecture  that  Charlemagne  took  the  title  of 
Roman  Emperor  because  he  wished  to  be  something  more  than  King  of 
the  Franks  — '  the  Chieftain  who  would  no  longer  call  himself  King  of  the 
tribe  must  claim  to  be  Emperor  of  the  World '  {Ancient  Law,  p.  105)  —  I 
have  been  unable  to  find  any  evidence. 

K  Life  of  St.  Adalbert  (written  at  Rome  early  in  the  eleventh  century 
probably  by  a  brother  of  the  monastery  of  SS.  Boniface  and  Alexius)  in 
M.  G.  H.,  Script,  iv.  p.  590  (c.  2l). 


IMPERIAL  TITLES   AND   PRETENSIONS  197 

Benedict  VIII,h  which  forbade  the  German  prince  to  take  CHAP.  xn. 
the  name  or  office  of  Emperor  till  approved  and  conse- 
crated by  the  Pontiff,  but  a  doctrine  so  favourable  to  papal 
pretensions  was  sure  not  to  want  advocacy ;  Hadrian  IV 
proclaims  it  in  the  broadest  terms,  and  through  the  efforts 
of  the  clergy  and  the  spell  of  reverence  in  the  Teutonic 
princes,  it  passed  into  an  unquestioned  belief.1  That  none 
ventured  to  use  the  title  till  the  Pope  conferred  it,  made  it 
seem  to  depend  on  his  will,  enabled  him  to  exact  condi- 
tions from  every  candidate,  and  gave  colour  to  his  pre- 
tended suzerainty.  Since  by  feudal  theory  every  honour 
and  estate  is  held  from  some  superior,  and  since  the  divine 
commission  has  been  without  doubt  issued  directly  to  the 
Pope,  must  not  the  whole  earth  be  his  fief,  and  he  the  lord 
paramount,  to  whom  even  the  Emperor  is  a  vassal  ?  This 
argument,  which  drew  plausibility  from  the  rivalry  between 
the  Emperor  and  other  monarchs,  as  compared  with  the 
undisputed J  authority  of  the  Pope,  was  a  favourite  with  the 

h  Given  by  Rudolphus  Glaber,  M.  G.  H.,  Script.,  on  p.  59  (bk.  i.  c.  5). 
It  is  on  the  face  of  it  an  impudent  forgery :  '  Ne  quisquam  audacter  Romani 
Imperii  sceptrum  praepostere  gestare  princeps  appetat  neve  Imperator  dici 
aut  esse  valeat  nisi  quern  Papa  Romanus  morum  probitate  aptum  elegerit, 
eique  commiserit  insigne  imperiale.' 

1  The  Sachsenspiegel  says,  Election  by  the  Germans  gives  the  person 
chosen  the  right  to  be  crowned;  consecration  by  the  bishops  gives  him  the 
power  and  title  of  king;  consecration  by  the  Pope  gives  him  the  power  and 
title  of  Emperor.  '  Die  dvideschen  solen  durch  recht  den  koning  kiesen. 
Svenne  die  gewiet  wert  von  den  bischopen  die  dar  to  gesat  sin,  unde  uppe 
den  stul  to  Aken  kumt,  so  hevet  he  koninglike  wait  unde  koningliken 
namen.  Svenne  yn  die  paues  wiet,  so  heute  he  des  rikes  gewalt  unde 
keiserliken  namen.' 

So  a  poem  of  Frederick  I's  time  (see  Note  XVII  at  end)  says, 
'  Mos  fuit  ut  Romam  tendant  sumantque  coronam 
Teutonici  reges;   nee  habet  magnum  ullus  eorum 
Imperii  nomen,  donee  a  praesule  summo 
Sumpserit  oblatum  manibus  diadema  sacratis.' 
J  The  denial  of  the  supreme  jurisdiction  of  Peter's  chair  by  the  Eastern 


198  THE    HOLY    ROMAN    EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xii.  high  sacerdotal  party  :  first  distinctly  advanced  by  Hadrian 
IV,  when  he  set  up  the  picture  k  representing  the  homage 
of  Lothar  II,  which  had  so  irritated  the  followers  of  Barba- 
rossa,  though  it  had  already  been  hinted  at  in  Gregory 
VII's  gift  of  the  crown  to  Rudolf  of  Swabia,  with  the 
line  — 

'  Petra  dedit  Petro,  Petrus  diadema  Rudolfo. ' l 

Nor  was  it  only  by  putting  him  at  the  Pontiff's  mercy  that 
this  dependence  of  the  imperial  name  on  a  coronation  in 
the  city  injured  the  German  sovereign."1  With  strange 
inconsistency  it  was  not  pretended  that  the  Emperor's 
rights  were  any  narrower  before  he  received  the  rite :  he 
could  summon  synods,  confirm  papal  elections,  exercise 
jurisdiction  over  the  citizens:  his  right  to  receive  the 
crown  itself  was  not,  at  least  till  the  days  of  Gregory  VII, 

churches  affected  very  slightly  the  belief  of  Latin  Christendom,  just  as  the 
existence  of  a  rival  Emperor  at  Constantinople  with  at  least  as  good  a  legal 
title  as  the  Teutonic  Caesar,  was  readily  forgotten  or  ignored  in  Germany  and 
Italy. 

k  Odious  especially  for  the  inscription,  — 

'Rex  venit  ante  fores  nullo  prius  urbis  honore; 

Post  homo  fit  Papae,  sumit  quo  dante  coronam.' 
Another  version  of  the  first  line  is,  — 

1  Rex  stetit  ante  fores  iurans  prius  urbis  honores.' 
Cf.  M.  G.  H.,  Script,  xx.  p.  422  (Rahewin,  iii.  10). 

14  The  Rock  (i.e.  Christ)  gave  the  crown  to  Peter,  and  Peter  (i.e.  the 
Pope)  to  Rudolf.' 

m  Mediaeval  history  is  full  of  instances  of  the  superstitious  veneration  at- 
tached to  the  rite  of  coronation  (made  by  the  Church  almost  a  sacrament), 
and  to  the  special  places  where  or  even  utensils  and  emblematic  objects  with 
which  it  was  performed.  Every  one  knows  the  importance  in  France  of 
Rheims  and  its  sacred  ampulla,  brought  down  from  heaven  by  a  dove.  So 
the  Scottish  king  must  be  crowned  at  Scone,  an  old  seat  of  Pictish  royalty  — 
Robert  Bruce  risked  a  great  deal  to  receive  his  crown  there.  So  no  Hunga- 
rian coronation  was  valid  unless  made  with  the  crown  of  St.  Stephen;  the 
possession  whereof  is  still  accounted  so  valuable  by  the  Austrian  court. 

Great  importance  seems  to  have  been  attached  to  the  imperial  globe 
(Reichsapfel)  which  the  Pope  delivered  to  the  Emperor  at  his  coronation. 


IMPERIAL   TITLES    AND   PRETENSIONS  199 

seriously  denied.  No  one  thought  of  contesting  the  claim  CHAP.  XII. 
of  the  German  nation  to  the  Empire,  or  the  authority  of 
the  German  electors,  strangers  though  they  were,  to  give 
Rome  and  Italy  a  master.  The  republican  followers  of 
Arnold  of  Brescia  might  murmur,  but  they  could  not  dis- 
pute the  truth  of  the  proud  lines  in  which  the  poet  who 
sang  the  glories  of  Barbarossa  n  describes  the  result  of  the 
conquest  of  Charles  the  Great :  — 

'  Ex  quo  Romanum  nostra  virtute  redemptum 
Hostibus  expulsis,  ad  nos  iustissimus  ordo 
Transtulit  imperium,  Romani  gloria  regni 
Nos  penes  est.     Quemcunque  sibi  Germania  regem 
Praeficit,  hunc  dives  summisso  vertice  Roma 
Suscipit,  et  verso  Tiberim  regit  ordine  Rhenus.' 

But  the  real  strength  of  the  Teutonic  kingdom  was 
wasted  in  the  pursuit  of  a  glittering  toy :  once  at  least 
in  his  reign  each  Emperor  undertook  a  long  and  dan- 
gerous expedition,  and  dissipated  in  a  costly  and  ever  to 
be  repeated  strife  the  forces  that  might  have  achieved 
conquest  elsewhere,  or  made  him  feared  and  obeyed  at 
home. 

At  this  epoch  appears  another  title,  of  which  more  must    The  title 
be  said.    To  the  accustomed  'Roman  Empire'  Frederick  I  >Holy 

Empire? 

adds  the  epithet  of  '  Holy.'  Of  its  earlier  origin,  under 
Conrad  II  (the  Salic),  which  some  have  supposed,0  there 
is  no  documentary  trace.p  So  far  as  is  known  it  occurs 

n  Whether  the  poem  which  used  to  pass  under  the  name  of  Gunther  Li- 
gurinus  be  contemporary  or  the  work  of  some  later  scholar  is  for  the  present 
purpose  indifferent.  The  better  opinion  now  seems  to  be  that  the  poem 
belongs  to  the  age  of  Frederick,  and  that  '  Ligurinus '  is  its  title. 

0  Zedler,  Universal-Lexicon,  s.  v.  Reich. 

P  It  does  not  occur  before  Frederick  I's  time  in  any  of  the  documents 
printed  in  Pertz's  collection;  and  this  is  the  date  which  Boeclerus  also 
assigns  in  his  treatise,  De  Sacro  Imperio  Romano,  vindicating  the  terms  '  sa- 
crum '  and  '  Romanum  '  against  the  aspersions  of  Blondel. 


200  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xii.  first  in  the  summons  or  circular  letter  issued  by  Frederick 
in  A.D.  1157,  requiring  the  magnates  of  the  Empire  to  give 
him  their  aid  in  his  expedition  against  the  recalcitrant  cities 
of  Lombardy:  'Quia  urbis  et  orbis  gubernacula  tenemus 
iuxta  diversos  eventus  rerum  et  successiones  temporum 
sacro  imperio  et  divae  reipublicae  consulere  debemus,' 
where  the  second  phrase  is  a  synonym  repeating  the  idea 
of  the  first.  It  occurs  also  afterwards  in  other  documents 
of  his  reign,  as  for  example  in  a  letter  to  the  East  Roman 
Emperor  Isaac  Angelus.  Used  occasionally  by  Henry  VI 
and  Frederick  II,  it  is  more  frequent  under  their  successors, 
William,  Richard,  Rudolf,  till  after  Charles  IV's  time  it 
becomes  habitual,  and  during  the  last  few  centuries  the 
familiar  description  in  current  speech  of  the  Germanic 
State.8 

The  adoption  of  the  title  did  not  mark  .or  coincide  with 
any  constitutional  or  political  change,  for  the  Empire,  as  has 
already  been  shewn,  was  in  its  wider  form  essentially  and 
substantially  the  creation  of  Charles,  in  its  narrower  form, 
as  practically  consisting  of  Germany  and  Northern  Italy 
(of  course  also  with  a  vague  unenforceable  claim  to  uni- 
versal sovereignty),  the  creation  of  Otto  the  Great.  Nor 
are  its  original  meaning  and  the  motives  which  led  Fred- 
erick and  his  first  successors  to  employ  it,  altogether  clear. 
Some  have  regarded  it  as  a  perpetuation  of  the  court  style 
of  Rome  and  Constantinople  which  attached  sanctity  to 
the  person  of  the  monarch :  thus  David  Blondel,  con- 
tending for  the  honour  of  France,  calls  it  a  mere  epithet 
of  the  Emperor,  applied  by  confusion  to  his  government.* 

i  Pertz,  Constitutions!  et  Ada  Publica,  vol.  i.  p.  224. 
r  Ibid.  iv.  p.  99. 

•  Readers  of  Goethe's  Faust  will  remember  the  student's  song : 

'  Das  Hebe  heil'ge  Romische  Reich, 
Wie  halt's  nur  noch  zusammen? ' 

*  Blondellus,   Adv.    Chiffletium.      Most    of  these   theories  are   stated  by 


IMPERIAL   TITLES   AND   PRETENSIONS  2OI 

Others  saw  in  it  a  religious  meaning,  referring  to  Daniel's  CHAP.  xn. 
prophecy,  or  to  the  fact  that  the  Empire  was  contemporary 
with  Christianity,  or  to  Christ's  birth  under  it.u  Strong 
churchmen  derived  it  from  the  dependence  of  the  imperial 
crown  on  the  Pope.  There  were  not  wanting  those  who 
maintained  that  it  meant  nothing  more  than  great  or 
splendid.  There  need  not,  however,  be  any  great  doubt 
as  to  its  true  sense  and  purport.  The  ascription  of  sacred- 
ness  to  the  person,  the  palace,  the  letters,  and  so  forth,  of 
the  sovereign,  so  common  in  the  later  ages  of  ancient 
Rome,  had  been  partly  retained  in  the  German  court. 
Liudprand  calls  Otto  'imperator  sanctissimus.'1  Still  this 
sanctity,  which  the  Easterns  above  all  others  lavished  on 
their  princes,  is  something  personal,  is  nothing  more  than 
the  divinity  that  in  all  countries  doth  hedge  a  king.  Far 
more  intimate  and  peculiar  was  the  relation  of  the  revived 
Roman  Empire  to  the  Church  and  religion.  As  has  been 
said  already,  it  was  neither  more  nor  less  than  the  Visible 
Church,  seen  on  its  secular  side,  the  Christian  society 
organized  as  a  state  under  a  form  divinely  appointed,  and 
therefore  the  name  '  Holy  Roman  Empire '  was  the  need- 
ful and  rightful  counterpart  to  that  of  'Holy  Catholic 
Church.'  y  Such  had  long  been  the  belief,  and  so  the  title 

Boeclerus.  Jordanes  {Chronica)  says,  'Sacri  imperil  quod  non  est  dubium 
sancti  Spiritus  ordinatione,  secundum  qualitatem  ipsam  et  exigentiam  meri- 
torum  humanorum  disponi.' 

u  Marquard  Freher's  notes  to  Peter  de  Andlau,  book  i.  chap.  vii. 

1  So  in  the  song  on  the  capture  of  the  Emperor  Lewis  II  by  Adalgisus 
of  Benevento,  we  find  the  words,  '  Ludhuicum  comprenderunt  sancto  pio 
Augusto.'  (Quoted  by  Gregorovius,  Geschichtc  der  Stadt  Rom  im  Mittelalter, 
iii.  p.  185;  Eng.  trans.  Hi.  169.) 

y  In  the  older  churches  of  Germany  one  sometimes  finds  the  tomb  of  a 
cardinal  with  the  familiar  inscription,  '  S.  R.  E.  Card.  Presb.  (or  Diac.)' 
(Sanctae  Romanae  Ecclesiae  Cardinalis  Presbyter),  and  hard  by  the  tomb 
of  an  elector  with  '  S.  R.  I.  Princ.  Elect.'  (Sacri  Romani  Imperii  Princeps 
Elector).  The  correspondence  of  the  descriptions  expresses  the  exact  corre- 


202  THE    HOLY    ROMAN    EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xii.  might  have  had  its  origin  as  far  back  as  the  tenth  or  ninth 
century,  might  even  have  emanated  from  Charles  himself. 
Alcuin  in  one  of  his  letters  uses  the  phrase  'imperium 
Christianum.'  But  there  was  a  further  reason  for  its  in- 
troduction under  the  second  Hohenstaufen,  immediately 
after  his  contest  with  Pope  Hadrian  IV.  Ever  since  Hilde- 
brand  had  claimed  for  the  priesthood  exclusive  sanctity 
and  supreme  jurisdiction,  extreme  papalists  had  been  wont 
to  speak  of  the  civil  power  as  being,  compared  with  that 
of  their  own  chief,  merely  secular  and  earthly.  It  may  be 
conjectured  that  to  meet  this  reproach,  no  less  injurious 
than  insulting,  Frederick  or  his  advisers  began  to  use  in 
public  documents  the  expression  '  Holy  Empire ' ;  thereby 
wishing  to  assert  the  divine  institution  and  religious  duties 
of  his  office.  Previous  Emperors  had  called  themselves 
'Catholici,'  'Christiani,'  'ecclesiae  defensores'  ;z  now  their 
State  itself  is  consecrated  an  earthly  theocracy.  'Ro- 
manum  imperium  ...  ad  remedium  tarn  perniciosi  morbi 
(sc.  schismatis)  divina  providit  dementia,' a  writes  Fred- 
erick to  the  English  Henry  II.  The  theory  was  one  which 
the  best  and  strongest  Emperors  had  most  striven  to  carry 
out ;  it  continued  to  be  zealously  upheld  long  after  it  had 
ceased  to  be  practicable.  In  the  proclamations  of  mediae- 
val kings  there  is  a  constant  dwelling  on  their  divine  com- 
mission. Power  in  an  age  of  violence  sought  to  justify 
while  it  enforced  its  commands,  to  make  brute  force  less 
brutal  by  appeals  to  a  higher  sanction.  This  is  seen  no- 
where more  than  in  the  style  of  the  German  sovereigns : 
they  delight  in  the  phrases  'maiestas  sacrosancta,' b  'impe- 

spondence  of  the  positions,  spiritual  and  temporal,  as  conceived  of  in  the 
fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries. 

z  Goldast,  Constitutiones. 

•  Pertz,  M.  G.  H.,  Legg.  ii.  p.  119. 

b  'Apostolic  majesty'  was  the  proper  title  of  the  king  of  Hungary.  The 
Austrian  court  has  recently  revived  it. 


IMPERIAL   TITLES   AND   PRETENSIONS  203 

rator  divina  ordinante  providentia,'  'divina  pietate/  'per  CHAP. xn. 
misericordiam  Dei ' ;  many  of  which  were  preserved  till, 
like  those  used  now  by  other  European  kings,  like  our  own 
'  Defender  of  the  Faith,"  they  had  become  at  last  more  gro- 
tesque than  solemn.  The  freethinking  Emperor  Joseph  II, 
at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  was  'Advocate  of  the 
Christian  Church,'  '  Vicar  of  Christ/  '  Imperial  head  of 
the  faithful,'  '  Leader  of  the  Christian  army,'  '  Protector  of 
Palestine,  of  general  councils,  of  the  Catholic  faith.' c 

The  title,  if  it  added  little  to  the  power,  yet  certainly 
seems  to  have  increased  the  dignity  of  the  Empire,  and  by 
consequence  the  jealousy  of  other  states,  of  France  espe- 
cially. This  did  not,  however,  go  so  far  as  to  prevent  its 
recognition  by  the  Popes  and  the  French  kings,d  and  after 
the  sixteenth  century  it  would  have  been  a  breach  of 
diplomatic  courtesy  to  omit  it.  Nor  have  imitations  been 
wanting :  witness  such  phrases  as  '  Holy  Russia/  and  such 
titles  as  'Most  Christian  king  (France)/  'Catholic  king 
(Spain)/  '  Defender  of  the  Faith  (England).' 

c  Moser,   Romische  Kayser. 

d  Urban  IV  used  the  title  in  1259;  Francis  I  (of  France)  calls  the  Empire 
'  sacrosanctum.' 


CHAPTER   XIII 

FALL    OF    THE    HOHENSTAUFEN  :     RENEWED     STRIFE    OF 
PAPACY     AND    EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xiii.  IN  the  three  preceding  chapters  the  Holy  Empire  has 
been  described  in  what  is  not  only  the  most  brilliant  but 
the  most  momentous  period  of  its  history  ;  the  period  of 
its  rivalry  with  the  Popedom  for  the  chief  place  in  Chris- 
tendom. For  it  was  mainly  through  their  relations  with 
the  spiritual  power,  by  their  friendship  and  protection  at 
first,  no  less  than  by  their  subsequent  hostility,  that  the 
Teutonic  Emperors  influenced  the  developement  of  Euro- 
pean politics.  The  reform  of  the  Roman  Church  which 
went  on  during  the  reigns  of  Otto  I  and  his  successors 
down  to  Henry  III,  and  which  was  chiefly  due  to  the 
efforts  of  those  monarchs,  was  the  true  beginning  of  the 
grand  period  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the  first  of  that  long 
series  of  movements,  changes,  and  creations  in  the  eccle- 
siastical system  of  Europe  which  was,  so  to  speak,  the 
master  current  of  history,  secular  as  well  as  religious, 
during  the  centuries  which  followed.  The  first  result  of 
Henry  the  Third's  purification  of  the  Papacy  was  seen  in  the 
attempt  of  Gregory  the  Seventh  to  subject  all  jurisdiction 
to  that  of  his  own  chair,  and  in  the  long  struggle  of  the 
Investitures,  which  brought  out  into  clear  light  the  oppos- 
ing pretensions  of  the  temporal  and  spiritual  powers. 
Although  destined  in  the  end  to  bear  far  other  fruit,  the 
immediate  effect  of  this  struggle  was  to  evoke  in  all 
classes  an  intense  religious  feeling ;  and,  in  opening  up 

204 


FALL   OF  THE   HOHENSTAUFEN  205 

new   fields    of    ambition    to    the   hierarchy,    to    stimulate  CHAP.  xin. 

wonderfully  their  capacity  for  political  organization.     It  was 

this   impulse   that   gave  birth  to  the  Crusades,  and   that 

enabled  the  Popes,  stepping  forth  as  the  rightful  leaders 

of  a  religious  war,  to  bend  it  to  serve  their  own  ends :  it 

was  thus  too   that   they  struck  the  alliance  —  strange  as 

such  an  alliance  seems  now  —  with  the  rebellious  cities  of 

Lombardy,  and    proclaimed    themselves  the  protectors  of 

municipal  freedom.     But  the  third  and  crowning  triumph 

of  the  Holy  See  was  reserved  for  the  thirteenth  century. 

In  the  foundation  of  the  two  great  orders  of  ecclesiastical 

knighthood,    the    all-powerful     all-pervading    Dominicans 

and  Franciscans,  the  religious  fervour  of  the  Middle  Ages 

culminated :    in  the   overthrow  of   the  only  power  which 

could  pretend  to  vie  with  her  in  antiquity,  in  sanctity,  in 

universality,  the  Papacy  saw  herself  exalted  to  rule  alone 

over  the  kings  of  the  earth.     Of  that  overthrow,  following 

with   terrible   suddenness   on    the   days   of   strength  and 

glory  which  we  have  just  been  witnessing,  this  chapter  has 

now  to  speak. 

It  happened  strangely  enough  that  just  while  their  Henry  vi, 
ruin  was  preparing,  the  house  of  Swabia  gained  over  "9°-«97- 
their  ecclesiastical  foes  what  seemed  likely  to  prove  an 
advantage  of  the  first  moment.  The  son  and  successor 
of  Frederick  Barbarossa  was  Henry  VI,  a  man  who  had 
inherited  all  his  father's  severity  with  none  of  his  father's 
generosity.  By  his  marriage  with  Constance,  the  heiress 
of  the  Norman  kings,  he  had  become  master  of  Naples 
and  Sicily.  Emboldened  by  the  possession  of  what  had 
been  hitherto  the  stronghold  of  his  predecessors'  bitterest 
enemies,  and  able  to  threaten  the  Pope  from  south  as 
well  as  north,  Henry  conceived  a  scheme  which  might 
have  wonderfully  changed  the  history  of  Germany  and 
Italy.  He  proposed  to  the  Teutonic  magnates  to  lighten 


206  THE    HOLY    ROMAN    EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xiii.  their  burdens  by  uniting  these  newly-acquired  countries  to 
the  Empire,  to  turn  their  feudal  lands  into  allodial,  and  to 
make  no  further  demands  for  money  on  the  clergy,  on 
condition  that  they  should  pronounce  the  crown  hereditary 
in  his  family.  Results  of  the  highest  importance  would 
have  followed  this  change,  which  Henry  advocated  by 
setting  forth  the  perils  of  interregna,  and  which  he  doubt- 
less meant  to  be  but  part  of  an  entirely  new  system  of  polity. 
Already  so  strong  in  Germany,  and  with  an  absolute 
command  of  their  new  kingdom,  the  Hohenstaufen  might 
have  dispensed  with  the  renounced  feudal  services,  and 
built  up  a  firm  centralized  system,  like  that  which  was  al- 
ready beginning  to  develope  itself  in  France.  First,  how- 
ever, the  Saxon  princes,  then  some  ecclesiastics  headed  by 
Conrad  archbishop  of  Mentz,  opposed  the  scheme ;  the 
pontiff  withdrew  his  consent,  and  Henry  had  to  content 
himself  with  getting  his  infant  son  Frederick  the  Second 
chosen  king  of  the  Romans.  On  Henry's  untimely  death 
the  election  was  set  aside,  and  the  contest  which  followed 
between  Otto  of  Brunswick  (son  of  the  Saxon  duke  Henry 
the  Lion  and  of  Matilda  sister  of  Richard  Cceur  de  Lion) 

Philip,  1198-  and  Philip  of  Hohenstaufen  (brother  of  Henry  the  Sixth) 
gave  the  Popedom,  now  guided  by  the  genius  of  Innocent 
the  Third,  an  opportunity  of  extending  its  sway  at  the 

innocent  in    expense  of  its  antagonist.     The  Pope  moved  heaven  and 

and  Otto  iv.  earth  on  behalf  of  Otto,  whose  family  had  been  the  con- 
stant rivals  of  the  Hohenstaufen,  and  who  was  himself 
willing  to  promise  all  that  Innocent  required  ;  but  Philip's 
personal  merits  and  the  vast  possessions  of  his  house  gave 
him  while  he  lived  the  ascendancy  in  Germany.  His 
death  by  the  hand  of  an  assassin,  while  it  seemed  to  vindi- 
cate the  Pope's  choice,  left  the  Swabian  party  without  a 
head,  and  the  papal  favourite  was  soon  recognized  over  the 
whole  Empire.  But  Otto  IV  became  less  submissive  as  he 


FALL  OF  THE   HOHENSTAUFEN  2O/ 

felt  his  throne  more  secure.  Though  he  was  a  Welf  by  CHAP.  xin. 
birth,  he  had  no  sooner  received  the  imperial  crown  at  otto  iv,  1201 
Rome,  than  he  retracted  the  engagements  he  had  made, 
and  proceeded  to  reclaim  both  the  territories  that  had  be- 
longed to  the  Countess  Matilda  and  the  rights  he  had  but 
just  forsworn.  The  Roman  Church  at  last  deposed  and  ex- 
communicated her  ungrateful  son,  and  Innocent  rejoiced  in 
a  second  successful  assertion  of  pontifical  supremacy,  when 
Otto  was  dethroned  by  the  youthful  Frederick  the  Second, 
whom  a  tragic  irony  sent  into  the  field  of  politics  as  the 
champion  of  the  Holy  See,  whose  hatred  was  to  embitter 
his  life  and  extinguish  his  house. 

Upon  the  events  of  that  terrific  strife,  for  which  Em-  Frederick 
peror  and  Pope  girded  themselves  up  once  more,  upon  the  the  Second, 
narrative  of  Frederick  the  Second's  career,  with  its  roman- 
tic adventures,  its  sad  picture  of  marvellous  powers  lost  on 
an  age  not  ripe  for  them,  blasted  as  by  a  curse  in  the 
moment  of  victory,  it  is  not  necessary,  were  it  even  pos- 
sible, here  to  enlarge.  That  conflict  did  indeed  determine 
the  fortunes  of  the  German  kingdom  no  less  than  of  the 
republics  of  Italy,  but  it  was  upon  Italian  ground  that  it 
was  fought  out  and  it  is  to  Italian  history  that  its  details 
belong.  So  too  of  Frederick  himself.  Out  of  the  long 
array  of  the  Germanic  successors  of  Charles,  he  is,  with 
Otto  III,  the  only  one  who  comes  before  us  with  a  genius 
and  a  frame  of  character  that  are  not  those  of  a  Northern 
or  a  Teuton.*  There  dwelt  in  him,  it  is  true,  all  the 
energy  and  knightly  valour  of  his  father  Henry  and  his 

*  I  quote  from  the  Liber  Auguslalis  printed  among  Petrarch's  works  the 
following  curious  description  of  Frederick  :  '  Fuit  armorum  strenuus,  linguarum 
peritus,  rigorosus,  luxuriosus,  epicurus,  nihil  curans  vel  credens  nisi  temporale: 
fuit  malleus  Romanae  ecclesiae.' 

As  Otto  III  had  been  called  '  mirabilia  mundi,'  so  Frederick  II  is  spoken 
of  in  his  own  time  as  '  stupor  mundi  et  immutator  mirabilis.'  (So  Matth. 
Paris.) 


208 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  xin.  grandfather  Frederick  I.  But  along  with  these,  and  chang- 
ing their  direction,  were  other  gifts,  inherited  perhaps 
from  his  half  Norman,  half  Italian  mother  and  fostered 
by  his  education  in  Sicily,  where  Musulman  and  Byzantine 
influences  were  still  potent, b  a  love  of  luxury  and  beauty, 
an  intellect  refined,  subtle,  philosophical.  Through  the 
mist  of  calumny  and  legend  it  is  but  dimly  that  the  truth 
of  the  man  can  be  discerned,  and  the  outlines  that  appear 
serve  to  quicken  rather  than  appease  the  curiosity  with 
which  we  regard  one  of  the  most  extraordinary  personages 
in  history.  A  sensualist,  yet  also  a  warrior  and  a  politi- 
cian ;  a  profound  lawgiver  and  an  impassioned  poet ;  in  his 
youth  fired  by  crusading  fervour,  in  later  life  persecuting 
heretics  while  himself  accused  of  blasphemy  and  unbelief; 
of  winning  manners  and  ardently  beloved  by  his  followers, 
but  with  the  stain  of  more  than  one  cruel  deed  upon  his 
name,  he  was  the  marvel  of  his  own  generation,  and  suc- 
ceeding ages  looked  back  with  awe,  not  unmingled  with 
pity,  upon  the  inscrutable  figure  of  the  last  Emperor  who 
had  braved  all  the  terrors  of  the  Church  and  died  beneath 
her  ban,  the  last  who  had  ruled  from  the  sands  of  the 
ocean  to  the  shores  of  the  Ionian  sea.  But  while  they 
pitied  they  condemned.  The  undying  hatred  of  the  Pa- 
pacy threw  round  his  memory  a  lurid  light ;  him  and  him 
alone  of  all  the  imperial  line,  Dante,  the  worshipper  of  the 
Empire,  must  perforce  deliver  to  the  flames  of  hell.c 

Placed  as  the  Empire  was,  it  was  scarcely  possible  for 
its  head  not  to  be  involved  in  war  with  the  constantly 
aggressive  Popedom  —  aggressive  in  its  claims  of  territo- 


Struggle  of 
Frederick 
•with  the 
Papacy. 


b  The  remains  of  Frederick's  palace  castle,  now  sadly  neglected,  may  be 
seen  at  Brancaccio,  about  two  miles  SSE.  of  Palermo,  his  favourite  residence. 
His  body  lies  in  a  porphyry  sarcophagus  in  the  cathedral,  where  also  his  father 
Henry  VI  is  buried. 

c  '  Qua  entro  e  lo  secondo  Federico.'  —  Inferno,  canto  x. 


FALL   OF  THE   HOHENSTAUFEN  209 

rial  dominion  in  Italy  as  well  as  of  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction  CHAP.  xin. 
throughout  the  world.  But  it  was  Frederick's  peculiar  mis- 
fortune to  have  given  the  Popes  a  hold  over  him  which  they 
well  knew  how  to  use.  In  a  moment  of  youthful  enthusi- 
asm he  had  taken  the  cross  from  the  hands  of  an  eloquent 
monk,  and  his  delay  to  fulfil  the  vow  was  branded  as  im- 
pious neglect.  Excommunicated  by  Gregory  IX  for  not 
going  to  Palestine,  he  went,  and  was  excommunicated  for 
going :  having  concluded  an  advantageous  peace,  he  sailed 
for  Italy,  and  was  a  third  time  excommunicated  for  return- 
ing. To  Pope  Gregory  he  was  at  last  after  a  fashion 
reconciled,  but  with  the  accession  of  Innocent  IV  the 
flame  burst  out  afresh.  The  struggle  filled  and  embittered 
the  rest  of  Frederick's  life.  It  continued  through  the 
reign  of  his  son  Conrad  IV,  and  proved  fatal  to  his  grand- 
son Conradin,  last  scion  of  the  great  Swabian  house. 

The  special  pretexts  which  kindled  the  strife  need  not 
be  enumerated  :  the  real  causes  were  always  the  same,  and 
could  only  be  removed  by  the  submission  of  one  or  other 
combatant.  Chief  among  them  was  Frederick's  possession 
of  South  Italy  and  Sicily.  Now  were  seen  the  fruits  which 
the  first  Frederick  had  stored  up  for  his  house  when  he 
gained  for  Henry  his  son  the  hand  of  the  Norman  heiress. 
Apulia  and  Sicily  had  been  for  some  two  hundred  years 
recognized  as  a  fief  of  the  Holy  See,  and  the  Pope,  who 
felt  himself  in  danger  while  encircled  by  the  powers  of  his 
rival,  was  determined  to  use  his  feudal  right  to  the  full 
and  make  it  the  means  of  extinguishing  imperial  authority 
throughout  Italy.  But  although  the  strife  had  arisen  out 
of  territorial  disputes,  it  soon  assumed  a  religious  character, 
it  reopened  every  ancient  fountain  of  hatred,  and  passed 
into  a  contest  between  the  civil  and  the  spiritual  potentate. 
The  time  was  one  of  intellectual  upheaval  and  unrest : 
heresies  were  rife  :  the  air  was  full  of  new  doctrines.  To 


210  THE   HOLY    ROMAN    EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xiii.  this  troubled  or  rebellious  spirit  Frederick,  himself  perhaps 
influenced  by  Muslim  speculation,  and  certainly  no  dutiful 
son  of  the  Church,  made  his  appeal.  The  claim  of  the 
Papacy  to  control  the  secular  power  was  met  by  a  counter- 
claim on  the  Emperor's  part  to  exercise  ecclesiastical  au- 
thority—  it  would  almost  seem  to  create  a  new  imperial 
Church  of  which  he  should  be  the  head.  Strange  tales 
were  told  of  his  own  beliefs  and  purposes.  Some  said  that 
he  sought  to  establish  a  new  and  better  religion,  that  he 
deemed  himself  to  be,  like  the  Fatimite  Sultans  of  Egypt, 
a  sort  of  emanation  from  the  divinity,  and  received  nothing 
less  than  adoration  from  his  followers.  Others  denounced 
him  as  an  unbeliever  who  rejected  the  priesthood  because 
they  could  no  longer  work  miracles,  who  placed  Moses  and 
Christ  beside  Mohammed  as  impostors,  who  refused  to 
admit  as  true  anything  that  could  not  be  proved  from  facts 
by  human  reason.  Whatever  ground  these  charges  may 
have  had,  they  inflamed  the  minds  of  men,  and  passion 
grew  hotter  than  it  had  ever  been  in  the  days  of  Henry 
IV  and  Hildebrand,  of  Barbarossa  and  Alexander  III. 
The  Popes  saw  in  Frederick  the  most  dangerous  of  their 
enemies,  because  he  struck  at  the  root  of  their  claims  and 
sought  to  divert  from  them  the  allegiance  of  Christendom. 
They  branded  him  as  an  apostate  :  they  asserted  that  the 
Empire  had  been  given  to  the  Germans  as  a  fief  to  be  held 
from  the  Apostolic  See,  and  declared  that  the  power  of 
Peter,  symbolized  by  the  two  keys,  was  secular  as  well  as 
spiritual.  The  Emperor  appealed  to  law,  to  the  indelible 
rights  of  Caesar ;  he  claimed  the  right  of  reforming  the 
Church  against  the  will  of  the  hierarchy/  compared  him- 

d  Frederick  is  reported  to  have  said  :  '  Si  principes  imperii  institutioni 
meae  assentirent,  ego  utique  multo  meliorem  modum  credendi  et  vivendi 
cunctis  nationibus  ordinare  vellem.' — Chron.  Sanpetr.  Erfurt,  (quoted  by 
Huillard  Breholles,  Historia  Diplom.  Frederici  7/,di  Introd.  DXv).  Not  only 


FALL  OF  THE   HOHENSTAUFEN  211 

self  to  Elijah  rooting  out  the  prophets  of  Baal,  and  de-  CHAP.  xm. 
nounced  his  foe  as  the  Antichrist  of  the  New  Testament, 
since  it  was  God's  representative  on  earth  whom  he  was 
resisting.  The  one  scoffed  at  anathema,  upbraided  the 
avarice  of  the  Church,  and  treated  her  soldiery,  the  friars, 
with  a  severity  not  seldom  ferocious.  The  other  solemnly 
deposed  a  rebellious  and  heretical  prince,  offered  the  im- 
perial crown  to  Robert  of  France,  to  the  heir  of  Denmark, 
to  Hakon  the  Norse  king,6  succeeded  at  last  in  raising  up 
rivals  in  Henry  of  Thuringia  and  William  of  Holland. 
Frederick  died  in  the  midst  of  his  strife,  A.D.  1250,  and  his 
son  Conrad  IV  (associated  with  him  in  the  Empire  since 
1237)  survived  him  only  four  years.  Germany  was  by 
this  time  a  prey  to  anarchy,  for  Conrad  had  been  occupied 
with  efforts  to  save  Italy.  Manfred,  an  illegitimate  son  of 
Frederick  II,  maintained  the  contest  there  till  his  defeat 
and  death  near  Benevento  in  1266;  and  with  Conrad  or 
Conradin,  son  of  Conrad  IV,  a  gallant  boy  of  fifteen  who 
had  crossed  the  Alps  to  assert  his  rights  to  Sicily  (which 
the  Pope  had  bestowed  on  Charles  of  Anjou),  the  house  of 
Hohenstaufen  ended. 

Though  this  long  struggle  was  a  continuation  of  that 
which  began  nearly  two  centuries  before  under  Henry  IV, 

by  his  partizans  but  in  his  own  letters  Jesi,  his  birthplace,  is  referred  to  as 
Bethlehem,  while  Pier  delle  Vigne,  his  minister,  is  spoken  of  as  the  Peter 
of  the  new  Church, '  Petrus  in  cuius  petra  fundatur  imperialis  ecclesia  et  Au- 
gustalis  animus  roboratur  in  coena  cum  discipulis'  (Huillard  Breholles,  ut 
supra,  DXIII).  This  may  be  the  origin  of  Dante's  reference  to  Piero  as  hold- 
ing '  both  the  keys  of  the  heart  of  Frederick  '(/«/!  xiii.  58). 

The  wizard  Michael  the  Scot,  whose  lean  ghost  Dante  found  in  Malebolge 
(/»/.  xx.  115),  was  astrologer  to  Frederick  II  and  translated  for  him  some 
works  of  Aristotle. 

e  Hakon,  one  of  the  greatest  of  the  kings  of  Norway,  and  the  one  whose 
diplomacy  succeeded  in  obtaining  the  submission  of  Iceland,  refused,  saying 
that  he  would  fight  against  the  enemies  of  the  Church,  but  not  against  those 
of  the  Pope. 


212 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN    EMPIRE 


CHAP.  xiii.  yet  in  this  latest  phase  it  is  not  so  much  the  Teutonic 
Emperor  who  is  attacked  as  the  Sicilian  king,  the  un- 
believer and  friend  of  Mohammedans,  the  hereditary 
enemy  of  the  Church,  the  assailant  of  Lombard  indepen- 
dence, whose  success  must  leave  the  Papacy  defenceless. 
And  as  it  was  from  the  Sicilian  kingd6m  that  the  strife 
had  chiefly  sprung,  so  was  the  possession  of  the  Sicilian 
kingdom  a  source  as  much  of  weakness  as  of  strength, 
for  it  distracted  Frederick's  forces  and  put  him  in  the 
false  position  of  a  liegeman  resisting  his  lawful  suzerain. 
Truly,  as  the  Greek  proverb  says,  the  gifts  of  foes  are  no 
gifts,  and  bring  no  profit  with  them.  The  Norman  kings 
were  more  terrible  in  their  death  than  in  their  life :  they 
had  sometimes  baffled  the  Teutonic  Emperor ;  their  heri- 
tage destroyed  him. 

With  Frederick  fell  the  Empire.  From  the  ruin  that 
overwhelmed  the  greatest  of  its  houses  it  emerged,  living 
indeed,  and  destined  to  a  long  life,  but  so  shattered, 
crippled,  and  degraded,  that  it  could  never  more  be  to 
Europe  and  to  Germany  what  it  once  had  been.  In  the 
last  act  of  the  tragedy  were  joined  the  enemy  who  had 
now  blighted  its  strength  and  the  rival  who  was  des- 
tined to  insult  its  weakness  and  at  last  blot  out  its  name. 
The  murder,  after  his  defeat  at  Tagliacozzo,  of  Frederick's 
grandson  Conradin  — a  hero  whose  youth  and  whose  chiv- 
alry might  have  moved  the  pity  of  any  other  foe  —  was 
approved,  if  not  suggested,  by  Pope  Clement ;  it  was 
wrought  by  the  minions  of  Charles  of  Anjou. 

The  Lombard  league  had  successfully  resisted  Freder- 
ick's armies  and  the  more  dangerous  Ghibeline  nobles  : 
their  strong  walls  and  swarming  population  made  defeats 
in  the  open  field  hardly  felt ;  and  now  that  South  Italy 
had  passed  away  from  a  German  line  —  first  to  an  An- 
gevin, afterwards  to  an  Aragonese  dynasty  —  it  was  plain 


FALL  OF  THE   HOHENSTAUFEN  213 

that  the  peninsula  was  irretrievably  lost  to  the  Emperors.  CHAP.  xin. 
Why,  however,  should  they  not  still  be  strong  beyond  the 
Alps  ?  was  their  position  worse  than  that  of  England 
when  Normandy  and  Aquitaine  no  longer  obeyed  a  Plan- 
tagenet  ?  The  force  that  had  enabled  them  to  rule  so 
widely  would  be  all  the  greater  in  a  narrower  sphere. 

So  indeed  it  might  once  have  been,  but   now  it  was  Decline  of 
too  late.     The  German  kingdom  broke  down  beneath  the  tmPenal 

/•IT-.  w»        •  •  i  power  in 

weight  of  the  Roman  Empire.  To  be  universal  sovereign  Germany. 
Germany  had  sacrificed  her  own  political  unity  and  the 
vigour  of  her  national  monarchy.  The  necessity  under 
which  projects  in  Italy  and  disputes  with  the  Pope  laid 
each  Emperor  of  purchasing  by  concessions  the  support 
of  his  own  princes,  the  ease  with  which  in  his  absence  the 
magnates  could  usurp,  the  difficulty  which  the  monarch 
returning  found  in  resuming  the  privileges  of  his  crown, 
the  temptation  to  revolt  and  set  up  pretenders  to  the 
throne  which  the  Holy  See  held  out  —  these  were  the 
causes  whose  steady  action  laid  the  foundation  of  that 
territorial  independence  which  rose  into  a  stable  fabric  at 
the  era  of  the  Great  Interregnum.  Frederick  II  had  by  The  Great 
two  Pragmatic  Sanctions,  A.D.  1220  and  1232,  formally  interresnum 
granted  rights,  already  beginning  to  be  rooted  in  custom, 
which  were  wide  enough  to  give  the  bishops  and  nobles 
practical  sovereignty  in  their  own  towns  and  territories, 
except  when  the  Emperor  should  be  present ;  and  thus 
his  direct  jurisdiction  became  restricted  to  his  narrowed 
domain,  and  to  the  cities  immediately  dependent  on  the 
crown.  With  so  much  less  to  do,  an  Emperor  became 
altogether  a  less  necessary  personage ;  and  hence  the 
seven  magnates  of  the  realm,  now  by  law  or  custom  virtu- 
ally sole  electors,  were  in  no  haste  to  fill  up  the  place  of 
Conrad  IV,  whom  the  supporters  of  his  father  Frederick 
had  acknowledged.  William  of  Holland  was  in  the  field, 


214 


THE   HOLY  ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  XIII. 


Double 
election  of 
Richard  of 
England 
and  Alfonso 
of  Castile. 


State  of 
Germany 
during  the 
Interregnum. 


but  resisted  by  the  Swabian  party  :  on  his  death,  in  1256, 
a  new  election  was  called  for,  and  at  last  set  on  foot.  The 
archbishop  of  Cologne  advised  his  brethren  to  choose  some 
one  rich  enough  to  support  the  dignity,  not  strong  enough 
to  be  feared  by  the  electors  :  both  requisites  met  in  the 
Plantagenet  Richard,  earl  of  Cornwall,  brother  of  the  Eng- 
lish Henry  III.  He  received  three,  eventually  four  votes, 
came  to  Germany,  and  was  crowned  at  Aachen.  But  three 
of  the  electors,  finding  that  the  sums  he  had  paid  to  them 
were  smaller  than  those  received  by  others,  seceded  in 
disgust,  and  chose  Alfonso  X  of  Castile/  who,  shrewder 
than  his  competitor,  continued  to  watch  the  stars  at 
Toledo,  enjoying  the  splendours  of  his  title  while  troubling 
himself  about  it  no  further  than  to  issue  now  and  then 
a  proclamation.8  Meantime  the  condition  of  Germany 
was  frightful.  The  new  Didius  Julianus,  the  chosen  of 
princes  baser  than  the  praetorians  whom  they  copied, 
had  neither  the  character  nor  the  outward  power  and 
resources  to  make  himself  respected.  Every  floodgate 
of  anarchy  was  opened :  prelates  and  barons  extended 
their  domains  by  war :  robber-knights  infested  the  high- 
ways and  the  rivers  :  the  misery  of  the  weak,  the  tyranny 
and  violence  of  the  strong,  were  such  as  had  not  been  seen 
for  centuries.  Things  were  worse  than  they  had  ever  been 
under  the  Saxon  and  Franconian  Emperors  ;  for  the  petty 
nobles  who  had  then  been  in  some  measure  controlled  by 
their  dukes,  were  now,  after  the  extinction  of  several  of 
the  great  houses,  left  without  any  feudal  superior.  Only 
in  the  cities  were  shelter  or  peace  to  be  found.  Those  of 
the  Rhine  had  already  leagued  themselves  for  mutual 

f  Surnamed,  from  his  scientific  tastes,  'the  Wise.' 

8  The  Interregnum  is  by  some  reckoned  as  the  two  years  before  Richard's 
election;  by  others  as  the  whole  period  from  the  death  of  Frederick  II  or 
that  of  his  son  Conrad  IV  till  Rudolf's  accession  in  1273. 


FALL  OF  THE   HOHENSTAUFEN  21$ 

defence,    and   maintained  a  struggle  in   the   interests  of  CHAP.  xin. 
commerce  and  order  against   universal  brigandage.      At  Death  of 
last,  when  Richard  had  been  some  time  dead,  it  was  felt  Richard, 
that  such  things  could  not  go  on  for  ever :  with  no  public 
law,  and  no  courts  of  justice,  an  Emperor,  the  embodiment 
of  legal  government,  was  the  only  resource.     The  Pope 
himself,  having  now  sufficiently  improved  the  weakness  of 
his  enemy,  found  the  disorganization  of  Germany  begin- 
ning to  tell  upon  his  revenues,  and  threatened  that  if  the 
electors  did  not  appoint  an  Emperor,  he  would.      Thus  Rudolph  of 
urged,  they  chose,  in  A.D.    1273,  Rudolf,  count  of  Haps-  HaPsburg< 

1  r  r      i          i  r  h  1273-1292. 

burg,  founder  of  the  house  of  Austria. 

From  this  point  there  begins  a  new  era.     We  have  seen  change  m 
the  Roman  Empire  revived  in  A.D.  800,  by  a  prince  whose  thePosltton 

•>  of  the  Em- 

vast  dominions  gave  ground  to  his  claim  of  universal  mon-  pire, 
archy ;  again  erected  in  A.D.  962,  on  the  narrower  but 
firmer  basis  of  the  German  kingdom.  We  have  seen  Otto 
the  Great  and  his  successors  during  the  three  following 
centuries,  a  line  of  monarchs  of  unrivalled  vigour  and 
abilities,  strain  every  nerve  to  make  good  the  pretensions 
of  their  office  against  the  rebels  in  Italy  and  the  ecclesi- 

h  '  Electores  imperii  ad  indicium  et  mandatum  domini  papae  apud  Franch- 
enfurte  super  electione  convenientes,  comitem  Rudolfum  ...  in  regem  ele- 
gerunt.'  —  Ann.  S.  Rudb.  Salisb.  ad  ann.  (Pertz,  M.  G.  H.  ix).  Rudolf, 
though  only  a  count,  had  considerable  possessions,  was  a  man  of  force,  and 
had  won  fame  and  popularity.  He  had  been  faithful  to  Frederick  II  and 
Conrad  IV,  and  had  accompanied  Conradin  into  Italy.  Hapsburg  (Habichts- 
burg,  '  Hawk's  Burgh ')  is  a  castle  (built  about  A.D.  1020)  in  the  Aargau  on 
the  banks  of  the  Aar,  and  near  the  line  of  railway  from  Olten  to  Zurich,  from 
a  point  on  which  a  glimpse  of  its  ruins  may  be  had.  '  Within  the  ancient 
walls  of  Vindonissa,'  says  Gibbon,  'the  castle  of  Hapsburg,  the  abbey  of 
Konigsfelden,  and  the  town  of  Brugg  have  successively  arisen.  The  philoso- 
phic traveller  may  compare  the  monuments  of  Roman  conquests,  of  feudal  or 
Austrian  tyranny,  of  monkish  superstition,  and  of  industrious  freedom.  If  he 
be  truly  a  philosopher,  he  will  applaud  the  merit  and  happiness  of  his  own 
time.' 


2l6  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xiii.  astical  power.  These  efforts  had  now  failed  signally  and 
hopelessly.  Each  successive  Emperor  had  entered  the 
strife  with  resources  scantier  than  his  predecessors,  each 
had  been  more  decisively  vanquished  by  the  Pope,  the 
Lombard  cities,  and  the  Gqrman  princes.  The  Holy 
Roman  Empire  might,  and,  so  far  as  its  practical  utility 
was  concerned,  ought  now  to  have  been  suffered  to  ex- 
pire ;  nor  could  it  have  ended  more  worthily  than  with  the 
last  of  the  Hohenstaufen.  That  it  did  not  so  expire,  but 
lived  on  six  hundred  years  more,  till  it  became  a  piece  of 
antiquarianism  hardly  more  venerable  than  ridiculous  — 
till,  as  Voltaire  said,  it  was  neither  Holy  nor  Roman  nor 
an  Empire  —  was  owing  partly  indeed  to  the  belief,  still 
unshaken,  that  it  was  a  necessary  part  of  the  world's 
order,  yet  chiefly  to  its  connection,  which  was  by  this 
time  indissoluble,  with  the  German  kingdom.  The  Ger- 
mans had  confounded  the  two  characters  of  their  sover- 
eign so  long,  and  had  grown  so  fond  of  the  style  and 
pretensions  of  a  dignity  whose  possession  appeared  to 
exalt  them  above  the  other  peoples  of  Europe,  that  it 
was  now  too  late  for  them  to  separate  the  local  from  the 
universal  monarch.  If  a  German  king  was  to  be  main- 
tained at  all,  he  must  be  Roman  Emperor ;  and  a  German 
king  there  must  still  be.  Deeply,  nay,  mortally  wounded 
as  the  event  proved  his  power  to  have  been  by  the  dis- 
asters of  the  Empire  to  which  it  had  been  linked,  the 
time  was  by  no  means  come  for  its  extinction.  In  the 
unsettled  state  of  society,  and  the  conflict  of  innumerable 
petty  potentates,  no  force  save  feudalism  was  able  to 
hold  society  together ;  and  its  efficacy  for  that  purpose 
depended,  as  the  anarchy  of  the  recent  Interregnum 
shewed,  upon  the  presence  of  the  recognized  feudal  head. 
That  head,  however,  was  no  longer  what  he  had  been. 
The  relative  position  of  Germany  and  France  was  now 


FALL   OF   THE   HOHENSTAUFEN  217 

exactly  the  reverse  of  that  which  they  had  occupied  two  CHAP.  xm. 
centuries  earlier.     Rudolf  was  as  conspicuously  a  weaker  Decline  of 
sovereign  than  Philip  III  of  France,  as  the  Franconian  **ere£al 

power  tn 

Emperor  Henry  III  had  been  stronger  than  the  Capetian    Germany  as 
Philip  I.     In  every  other  state  of  Europe  the  tendency  comPared 

.  111  ,.  ,      .    .  with  France 

of  events  had  been  to  centralize  the  administration  and  andEng- 
increase  the  power  of  the  monarch,  even  in  England  not  &»<*• 
to  diminish  it :  in  Germany  alone  had  political  union  be- 
come weaker,  and  the  independence  of  the  princes  more 
confirmed.  The  causes  of  this  change  are  not  far  to  seek. 
They  all  resolve  themselves  into  this  one,  that  the  Ger- 
man king  attempted  too  much  at  once.  The  rulers  of 
France,  where  manners  were  less  rude  than  in  the  other 
Transalpine  lands,  and  where  the  Third  Estate  rose  into 
importance  more  quickly,  had  reduced  one  by  one  the 
great  feudatories  by  whom  the  first  Capetians  had  been 
scarcely  recognized.  The  English  kings  had  annexed 
Wales,  Cumbria,  and  part  of  Ireland,  had  retained  a  pre- 
rogative great  if  not  uncontrolled,  and  exercised  no  doubt- 
ful sway  through  every  corner  of  their  country.  Both 
had  won  their  successes  by  the  concentration  on  that 
single  object  of  their  whole  personal  activity,  and  by  the 
skilful  use  of  every  device  whereby  their  feudal  rights, 
personal,  judicial,  and  legislative,  could  be  applied  to  fetter 
the  vassal.  Meantime  the  German  monarch,  whose  utmost 
efforts  it  would  have  needed  to  tame  his  fierce  nobles  and 
maintain  order  through  wide  territories  occupied  by  races 
unlike  in  dialect  and  customs,  had  been  struggling  with 
the  Lombard  cities  and  the  Normans  of  South  Italy,  and 
had  been  for  full  two  centuries  the  object  of  the  unrelent- 
ing enmity  of  the  Roman  pontiff.  And  in  this  latter  con- 
test, by  which  more  than  by  any  other  the  fate  of  the 
Empire  was  decided,  he  fought  under  disadvantages  far 
greater  than  his  brethren  in  England  and  France.  William 


218 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


Relations  of 
the  Papacy 
and  the 
Empire. 


CHAP.  xni.  the  Conqueror  had  defied  Hildebrand,  William  Rufus  had 
resisted  Anselm  ;  but  the  Emperors  Henry  the  Fourth  and 
Frederick  the  First  had  to  cope  with  prelates  who  were 
Hildebrand  and  Anselm  in  one ;  the  spiritual  heads  of 
Christendom  as  well  as  the  primates  of  their  special  realm, 
the  Empire.  And  thus,  while  the  ecclesiastics  of  Germany 
were  a  body  more  formidable  from  their  possessions  than 
those  of  any  other  European  country,  and  enjoyed  far 
larger  privileges,  the  Emperor  could  not,  or  could  with 
far  less  effect,  win  them  over  by  invoking  against  the 
Pope  that  national  feeling  which  made  the  cry  of  Gallican 
liberties  so  welcome  even  to  the  clergy  of  France. 

After  repeated  defeats,  each  more  crushing  than  the 
last,  the  imperial  power,  so  far  from  being  able  to  look 
down  on  the  papal,  could  not  even  maintain  itself  on  an 
equal  footing.  Against  no  pontiff  since  Gregory  VII  had 
the  monarch's  right  to  name  or  confirm  a  Pope,  undisputed 
in  the  days  of  the  Ottos  and  of  Henry  III,  been  made 
good.  It  was  the  turn  of  the  Emperor  to  repel  a  similar 
claim  of  the  Holy  See  to  the  function  of  reviewing  his 
own  election,  examining  into  his  merits,  and  rejecting  him 
if  unsound,  that  is  to  say,  impatient  of  priestly  tyranny. 
A  letter  of  Innocent  III,  who  was  the  first  to  make  this 
demand  in  terms,  was  inserted  by  Gregory  IX  in  his 
digest  of  the  Canon  Law,  the  inexhaustible  armoury  of 
the  churchman,  and  continued  to  be  quoted  thence  by 
every  canonist  till  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century.1  It 
was  not  difficult  to  find  grounds  on  which  to  base  such 
a  doctrine.  Gregory  VII  deduced  it  with  characteristic 
boldness  from  the  power  of  the  keys,  and  the  superiority 
over  all  other  dignities  which  must  needs  appertain  to  the 

1  Corpus  luris  Canonici,  Deer.  Greg.  i.  6,  cap.  34,  Venarabilem  :  '  I  us  et 
authoritas  examinandi  personam  electam  in  regem  et  promovendam  ad 
imperium  ad  nos  spectat,  qui  cum  inungimus,  consecramus  et  coronamus.' 


FALL   OF  THE   HOHENSTAUFEN  219 

Pope  as  arbiter  of  eternal  weal  or  woe.  Others  took  their  CHAP.  XIIL 
stand  on  the  analogy  of  clerical  ordination,  and  urged  that 
since  the  Pope  in  consecrating  the  Emperor  gave  him  a 
title  to  the  obedience  of  all  Christian  men,  he  must  have 
himself  the  right  of  approving  or  rejecting  the  candidate 
according  to  his  merits.  Others  again,  appealing  to  the 
Old  Testament,  shewed  how  Samuel  discarded  Saul  and 
anointed  David  in  his  room,3  and  argued  that  the  Pope  now 
must  have  powers  at  least  equal  to  those  of  the  Hebrew 
prophets.  But  the  ascendancy  of  the  doctrine  dates  from 
the  time  of  Pope  Innocent  III,  whose  ingenuity  discovered 
for  it  an  historical  basis.  It  was  by  the  Apostolic  See,  he 
declared,  that  the  Empire  was  taken  away  from  the  Greeks 
and  given  to  the  Germans  in  the  person  of  Charles,*  and 
the  authority  which  Leo  then  exercised  as  God's  represen- 
tative must  abide  thenceforth  and  for  ever  in  his  successors, 
who  can  therefore  at  any  time  recall  the  gift,  and  bestow 
it  on  a  person  or  a  nation  more  worthy  than  its  present 
holders.  This  is  the  famous  theory  of  the  Translation  of 
the  Empire,  which  plays  so  large  a  part  in  controversy 
down  to  the  seventeenth  century,1  a  theory  with  plausibility 

J  Lewis  II,  not  presaging  the  future,  uses  this  parallel  in  his  letter  (before 
referred  to)  to  the  East  Roman  Emperor  Basil:  'Nam  Francorum  principes 
primo  reges,  deinde  vero  imperatores,  dicti  sunt  ii  dumtaxat  qui  a  Romano 
pontifice  ad  hoc  oleo  sancto  perfusi  sunt.  .  .  .  Porro  si  calumpniaris 
Romanum  pontificem,  quod  gesserit,  poteris  calumpniari  et  Samuel,  quod 
spreto  Saule,  quern  ipse  unxerat,  David  in  regem  ungere  non  renuerit.' 

k  '  Illis  principibus,'  writes  Innocent,  '  ius  et  potestatem  eligendi  regem 
[Romanorum]  in  imperatorem  postmodum  promovendum  recognoscimus,  ad 
quos  de  Jure  ac  antiqua  consuetudine  noscitur  pertinere,  praesertim  quum  ad 
eos  ius  et  potestas  huiusmodi  ab  apostolica  sede  pervenerit,  quae  Romanum 
imperium  in  persona  magnifici  Caroli  a  Graecis  transtulit  in  Germanos.'  — 
Deer.  Greg.,  ut  supra,  Venerabilem. 

1  Its  influence,  however,  as  Dollinger  (Das  Kaiserthum  Karls  des  Grossen 
und  seiner  Nachfolger)  remarks,  first  became  great  when  this  letter,  some 
forty  or  fifty  years  after  Innocent  wrote  it,  was  inserted  in  the  digest  of  the 
Canon  Law.  Dollinger  gives  an  interesting  account  of  the  course  of  theory 


220  THE   HOLY   ROMAN    EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xin.  enough  to  make  it  generally  successful,  yet  one  which  to 
an  impartial  eye  appears  far  removed  from  the  truth  of 
the  facts.m  Leo  III  did  not  suppose,  any  more  than  did 
Charles  himself,  that  it  was  by  his  sole  pontifical  authority 
that  the  crown  was  given  to  the  Frank ;  nor  do  we  find 
such  a  notion  put  forward  by  any  of  his  successors  down 
to  the  twelfth  century.11  Gregory  VII  in  particular,  in  a 
remarkable  letter  dilating  on  his  prerogative,  appeals  to 
the  substitution  by  papal  interference  of  Pipin  for  the  last 
Merovingian  king,  and  even  goes  back  to  cite  the  case 
of  Theodosius  humbling  himself  before  St.  Ambrose,  but 
says  never  a  word  about  this  '  Translatio,'  excellently  as  it 
would  have  served  his  purpose.0 

Sound  or  unsound,  however,  these  arguments  did  their 
work,  for  they  were  urged  skilfully  and  boldly,  and  none 
denied  that  it  was  by  the  Pope  alone  that  the  crown  could 
be  lawfully  imposed.  In  some  instances  the  rights 
claimed  were  actually  made  good.  Thus  Innocent  III 
withstood  Philip  and  overthrew  Otto  IV;  thus  another 
haughty  priest  commanded  the  electors  to  choose  the 
Landgrave  of  Thuringia  (A.D.  1246),  and  was  by  some 
of  them  obeyed ;  thus  Gregory  X  compelled  the  recogni- 
tion of  Rudolf,  who  subsequently  (A.D.  1279)  admitted 

upon  this  subject,  and  of  the  various  misconceptions  and  perversions  (in 
writers  of  the  twelfth  and  three  following  centuries)  of  the  events  connected 
with  the  breach  between  the  Popes  and  the  East  Roman  Emperors,  and  the 
consequent  transference  of  the  Empire  to  the  Germans. 

m  See  chapter  V,  ante. 

B  Pope  Leo  IX  had,  however,  in  1054  claimed  for  his  see  rights  over  the 
Empire,  based  upon  the  Donation  of  Constantine,  which  would  have  covered 
the  power  to  transfer  the  crown.  Cf.  his  letter  to  Michael,  Patriarch  of  Con- 
stantinople, in  Migne,  vol.  cxliii.  Ep.  C.  pp.  744  sqq. 

0  Upon  this  so-called  '  Translation  of  the  Empire,'  many  books  remain  to 
us :  many  more  have  probably  perished.  A  good  although  far  from  impartial 
summary  of  the  controversy  may  be  found  in  Vagedes,  De  Ludibriis  Aulae 
Romanae  in  transfcrendo  Imperio  Romano. 


FALL   OF   THE   HOHENSTAUFEN  221 

in  a  letter  to  Pope  Nicholas  III  that  the  Germans  owed  CHAP.  xin. 
the  imperial  crown  to   the    Papacy.     His    son  Albert   I, 
anxious   for   the   support  of    Boniface  VIII    against   the 
German  archbishops,  made  a  similarly  humiliating  acknow- 
ledgement of  the  alleged  right  of  transfer. 

These  admissions  were,  however,  virtually  recalled 
and  the  rights  of  the  Empire  strenuously  asserted  in  the 
long  and  bitter  conflict  maintained  against  four  successive 
Popes  by  the  Emperor  Lewis  the  Fourth.  At  the  death 
of  Henry  VII,  Pope  Clement  V,  a  Frenchman  by  birth, 
who  had  transferred  his  seat  from  turbulent  Rome  to 
Avignon,p  claimed  for  himself  the  Vicariate  of  the  vacant 
Empire  and  claimed  also  a  general  supremacy  over  the 
imperial  crown.  His  successor,  Pope  John  XXII,  while 
reasserting  his  claim  to  the  Vicariate,q  summoned  Lewis 
and  his  rival  Frederick  of  Austria,  both  of  whom  had 
obtained  some  electoral  votes,  to  submit  their  pretensions 

P  Avignon  was  not  yet  in  the  territory  of  France :  it  lay  within  the  bounds 
of  the  kingdom  of  Aries.  But  the  French  power  was  nearer  than  that  of  the 
Emperor;  and  pontiffs,  many  of  them  French  by  extraction,  sympathized 
with  princes  of  their  own  race. 

i  '  Vacante  imperio  Romano,  cum  in  illo  ad  saecularem  iudicem  nequeat 
haberi  recursus,  ad  summum  pontificem,  cui  in  persona  B.  Petri  terreni  simul 
et  coelestis  imperii  iura  Deus  ipse  commisit,  imperii  praedicti  iurisdictio  regi- 
men et  dispositio  devolvitur.'  —  Bull  Si  fralrum  (of  John  XXII,  in  A.D. 
1316),  in  Bullar.  Rom.  So  again:  'Attendentes  quod  Imperii  Romani  regi- 
men cura  et  administratio  tempore  quo  illud  vacare  contingit  ad  nos  pertinet, 
sicut  dignoscitur  pertinere.'  Boniface  VIII,  refusing  to  recognize  Albert  I 
because  he  was  ugly  and  one-eyed  ('  est  homo  monoculus  et  vultu  sordido, 
non  potest  esse  Imperator'),  and  had  taken  a  wife  from  the  serpent  brood  of 
Frederick  II  ('de  sanguine  viperali  Friderici'),  had  some  fifteen  years  before 
declared  himself  Vicar  of  the  Empire. 

In  the  ninth  century,  before  these  pretensions  had  been  dreamt  of,  Pope 
John  VIII  dated  his  documents  during  vacancies  of  the  imperial  throne, 
'  imperatore  domino  nostro  lesu  Christo,'  a  form  not  uncommon  in  the  Middle 
Ages.  So  in  a  vacancy  of  the  Popedom  documents  were  sometimes  dated 
'  Petro  pontificante.' 


222  THE   HOLY    ROMAN    EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xiii.  to  his  decision,  and  when  Lewis  refused,  his  resentment, 
A.D.  1316.  accentuated  by  the  Emperor's  opposition  to  his  schemes 
for  strengthening  himself  in  Italy  by  stirring  up  enemies 
against  the  Ghibeline  chiefs  there,  led  him  to  form  the 
plan  of  ejecting  Lewis  from  the  throne  and  transferring  it 
to  the  French  king  Charles  IV.  John  accordingly  required 
the  Emperor  to  resign  the  crown  and  shew  himself  obedi- 
ent to  the  Holy  See,  without  whose  approval,  it  was 
insisted,  no  election  was  valid.  Lewis  protested  and 
appealed  to  a  General  Council,  but  was  promptly  excom- 
municated, and  his  subjects  declared  to  be  released  from 
their  allegiance.  Having  by  this  time  overthrown  his 
rival  Frederick,  and  finding  that  national  feeling  had  been 
roused  in  Germany  by  the  arrogance  of  the  Pope,  Lewis 
took  courage,  obtained  a  legal  opinion  in  his  favour  from 
the  University  of  Bologna,  enlisted  in  his  service  a  host  of 
Franciscan  friars  who  were  embarked  in  a  furious  quarrel 
of  their  own  with  the  Pope,  and  obtained  the  powerful  aid 
of  two  of  the  greatest  among  mediaeval  thinkers,  the 
Paduan  Marsilius r  and  the  English  Franciscan  William  of 
Ockham.  These  men  became  his  confidential  advisers,  and 
wrote  pamphlets  long  enough  to  be  called  treatises  on  his 
behalf  against  the  Pope.  Stimulated  by  the  counsels  of 
Marsilius  and  John  of  Jandun,  another  bold  spirit  from  the 
University  of  Paris,  Lewis  marched  upon  Rome  and  made 
friends  with  the  Roman  people,  who  thereupon  summoned 
Pope  John  to  return  to  his  see,  and  on  his  refusal  chose 
Lewis  as  their  Senator.  Extruding  the  Pope's  ally  king 
Robert  of  Naples  they  named  Sciarra  Colonna  Prefect  of 
the  City,  and  authorized  him  and  three  other  syndics  to 
AJ>.  1328.  perform  the  coronation.  This  accordingly  took  place. 
After  the  Emperor  had,  by  a  startling  departure  from  pre- 

r  As  to  Marsilius,  see  Note  XIII  at  end.     Ockham's  contentions  are  most 
fully  set  forth  in  a  book  he  wrote  much  later,  entitled  Octo  Qttaestiones. 


FALL   OF   THE   HOHENSTAUFEN  223 

cedent,  received  the  crown  from  lay  hands,  he  was  con-  CHAP,  xm 
secrated  by  bishops  whom  the  Pope  had  excommunicated.8 
Thereupon  Lewis  (who  had  appointed  Marsilius  papal 
vicar  in  the  City)  and  the  Romans  proceeded  in  a  solemn 
parliament  to  depose  Pope  John  (by  the  name  of  Jacques 
of  Cahors)  for  heresy  and  treason,  and  as  a  '  Destroyer 
of  Peace.'*  A  Franciscan  friar  was  chosen  Pope  in 
his  place  and  crowned  with  the  tiara  by  the  hands  of  the 
Emperor. 

These  revolutionary  proceedings,  which  could  hardly 
have  been  attempted  but  for  the  absence  of  John  XXII 
at  Avignon  and  the  disgust  excited  by  his  arrogance  and 
greed,u  are  doubly  surprising  as  being  carried  through  by 
a  man  whom  his  subsequent  conduct  shews  to  have  been 
weak  and  vacillating.  But  it  was  rather  to  the  weakness 
than  to  the  strength  of  Lewis  that  they  were  due.  He 
was  in  the  hands  of  three  strong  men,  one  of  them, 
Castruccio  Castracani,  lord  of  Lucca,  a  brilliant  and  un- 
scrupulous Ghibeline  leader,  the  other  two,  Marsilius  and 
John  of  Jandun,  uncompromising  theorists,  prepared  to 
strike  at  the  cardinal  doctrines  on  which  papal  authority 

•  An  annalist  observes :  '  Fuere  qui  dubitarent  an  invito  pontifice  haec  rite 
agerentur :  caeterum  Populus  Romanus  e  contra  contendebat  suas  esse  partes 
imperium  conferre,  Pontificis  autem  consecrare,  iisdem  auspiciis  Carolum 
enim  magnum  tune  demum  coronatum  esse  postquam  Populus  Romanus  eum 
imperare  iussisset.'  —  Nicol.  Burgund.,  ad  ann.  1328  (quoted  by  Gregorovius, 
History  of  Rome  in  the  Middle  Ages). 

'  This  phrase  suggests  the  hand  of  Marsilius,  whose  gigantic  pamphlet  on 
behalf  of  the  Emperor  was  entitled  Defensor  Pacts. 

u  How  far  this  disgust  had  gone  among  religious  men  even  fifty  years 
earlier  is  shewn  by  the  language  of  the  Franciscan  St.  Bonaventura,  who 
does  not  object  to  the  view  that  Rome  is  the  harlot  of  the  Apocalypse 
who  makes  drunk  princes  and  people,  seeing  that  in  Rome  ecclesiastical  posts 
are  bought  and  sold;  there  the  rulers  of  the  Church  meet,  despising  God  and 
serving  lust,  belonging  to  Satan  and  plundering  the  treasure  of  Christ  (quoted 
by  Friedberg,  Die  mittelalterlichen  Lehren  uber  das  Verhdltniss  -von  Staat 
und  Kirche).  Cf.  Dante,  Purg.  xxxii.  109. 


224  THE    HOLY    ROMAN    EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xin.  rested.  Nor  is  it  only  as  the  boldest  assertion  of  the 
rights  of  the  Empire  that  the  action  of  Lewis  in  Rome  is 
memorable.  It  was  also  the  one  instance  in  which 
the  Romans  gave  effect  to  their  cherished  doctrine 
that  the  transference  of  the  imperial  crown  to  Charles 
the  Great  had  been  their  doing,  the  one  instance  in 
which  the  Teutonic  power,  allying  itself  with  the  Roman 
people,  used  their  pretensions  to  be  the  fountain  of 
legal  right  not  only  to  supersede  the  Pope  in  his 
function  of  crowning  the  German  king,  but  also  to 
restore  to  them  the  function  of  choosing  their  own 
pastor,  who  in  becoming  bishop  of  Rome  becomes  also 
bishop  of  the  whole  world.  To  this  point  had  the  union 
of  the  ancient  Roman  law  with  the  Aristotelian  doctrines 
of  the  State  brought  the  fiery  scholastic  champions  of  the 
secular  power,  who  once  and  once  only  during  the  Middle 
Ages  found  an  opportunity  for  putting  their  theories  into 
practice. 

'As  it  was  the  extravagant  pretensions  of  Boniface  VIII 
and  John  XXII  that  had  caused  this  reaction  against 
their  office,  so  the  extreme  measures  taken  by  Lewis  pro- 
voked in  turn  a  reaction  against  himself.  The  Romans 
were  fickle,  as  was  their  wont :  Castruccio,  obliged  to  re- 
turn to  Tuscany,  and  alienated  from  the  Emperor,  died  soon 
afterwards,  as  did  Sciarra  Colonna.  Lewis  was  forced 
to  abandon  Rome,  and  in  1329  the  Romans  solemnly 
abjured  both  Lewis  and  their  antipope,  who  next  year 
flung  himself  at  John's  feet.  Meanwhile  the  Emperor, 
having  lost  his  hold  on  Italy,  sought  after  his  return  to 
Germany  to  propitiate  the  Pope.  John,  haughty  and  in- 
exorable, insisted  on  absolute  submission.1  His  successor, 

x  He  also  required,  though  in  vain,  the  punishment  of  Marsilius  and  John 
of  Jandun,  whom  he  called  two  beasts  from  hell  ('  duas  bestias  de  abysso 
Sathanae '). 


FALL   OF   THE   HOHENSTAUFEN  225 

Benedict  XII,  influenced  by  France,  was  less  peremptory  CHAP.  xin. 
but  no  more  compliant;  and  Clement  VI  (1344-52) 
renewed  the  excommunication  and  required  Lewis  to 
admit  that  the  Empire  was  a  fief  of  the  Holy  See.  The 
German  Estates,  however,  shewing  more  spirit  than  the 
Emperor  himself,  in  two  Diets  held  at  Frankfort  in  1338 
and  1339,  solemnly  enounced  and  embodied  in  a  Prag- 
matic Sanction  the  declaration  that  the  Empire  is  held 
from  God  alone,  and  that  the  sovereign,  once  duly  chosen 
by  the  electors,  needs  no  confirmation  or  approval  by 
the  Pope.y  The  electors  in  their  famous  conference  held 
at  Rhense  in  1338  made  a  like  declaration. 

The  writings  of  Ockham  and  Marsilius  seem  to  have 
had  considerable  influence  on  opinion ;  and  the  book 
of  Marsilius,  entitled  Defensor  Pads,  is  indeed  one  of 
the  most  remarkable  treatises  that  remain  to  us  from 
the  Middle  Ages.  In  holding  that  the  ultimate  source 
of  power  is  in  the  people,  Marsilius  does  not  stand 
alone,  for  this  position,  sanctioned  by  the  well-known 
doctrine  of  the  old  Roman  law  that  the  supreme  author- 
ity of  the  Emperor  springs  from  a  delegation  to  him 
by  the  people  of  their  inherent  powers,2  is  to  be  found 
in  other  mediaeval  publicists.  But  he  goes  further, 
maintaining  that  the  Church  does  not  consist  in  any 
special  sense  of  the  clergy,  but  of  all  Christians ;  that 
a  General  Council  stands  above  the  Pope,  that  it  ought 
to  consist  of  laymen  as  well  as  of  clerics,  that  persons 
of  different  religious  opinions  ought  to  be  all  equal  before 

y'Imperialis  dignitas  et  potestas  est  immediate  a  solo  Deo;  et  de  iure 
imperii  et  consuetudine  antiquitus  approbata  postquam  aliquis  eligitur  in  im- 
peratorem  sive  regem  ab  electoribus  imperii  concorditer,  vel  maiori  parte 
eorumdem  statim  ex  sola  electione  est  rex  verus  et  imperator  censendus  .  .  . 
nee  Papae  sive  sedis  apostolicae  aut  alicuius  alterius  approbatione  indiget.'  — 
Apud  Goldast,  Constitut.  Imp.  i.  336. 

1  Digest  i.  4.  I ;  Inst.  i.  2.  6. 
Q 


226  THE    HOLY   ROMAN    EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xin.  the  law,  and  that  the  priesthood  have  no  right  to  judge, 
much  less  to  punish,  heresy,  since  each  man  is  answerable 
for  his  speculative  opinions  to  the  judgement  of  Christ  only. 
Marsilius  denies  to  the  clergy  the  right  to  hold  property 
(except  what  is  needed  to  support  life),  as  also  any  im- 
munities or  privileges  outside  their  purely  spiritual  sphere 
of  action,  declares  that  Christ  did  not  come  on  earth  to 
establish  any  worldly  power  (regnum  menm  non  est  de 
hoc  mundo),  that  the  Pope  ought  not  to  have  any  such 
power,  —  the  power  of  the  keys  does  not  imply  it,  for 
God  alone  can  remit  sins,  —  that  the  distinction  of 
bishops  and  priests  has  no  basis  in  the  New  Testament. 
He  argues  that  St.  Peter  had  no  pre-eminence  over  the 
other  apostles,  that  it  is  doubtful  whether  he  was  ever 
bishop  of  Rome,  or  even  came  to  Rome  at  all,  and  that 
such  authority  as  the  Pope  enjoys  is  due  solely  to  the  fact 
that  Rome  had  been  the  old  imperial  city.  No  wonder 
that  Pope  Clement  VI  observed,  after  perusing  the 
Defensor  Pacts,  '  Never  have  I  read  a  worse  heretic.' 

These  doctrines  struck  at  the  root  not  merely  of  the 
particular  claim  made  by  John  XXII,  but  of  the  whole 
sacerdotal  system  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Their  enun- 
ciation coincided  with  the  most  extreme  assertion  of 
high  Papalist  doctrine  ever  made.  Agostino  Trionfo's 
book  on  the  Power  of  the  Pope,  dedicated  to  John  XXII 
as  the  book  of  Marsilius  had  been  to  Lewis  IV,  claims 
for  the  Holy  See  absolute  power  over  all  secular  sove- 
reigns in  all  matters,  temporal  as  well  as  spiritual.  There 
is  no  appeal  from  him  even  to  God,  much  less  to 
a  council,  for  his  judgement  is  God's.  He  may  con- 
ceivably lapse  into  heresy,  and,  if  so,  he  ceases  ipso  facto 
to  be  Pope,  because  spiritual  life  resides  in  faith,  with- 
out which  he  is  spiritually  dead,  as  a  corpse  is  not  a  man. 
But  he  is  bound  by  no  law  except  the  Divine.  He 


FALL  OF   THE   HOHENSTAUFEN  227 

stands  higher  than  the  angels,  and  may  receive  the  same  CHAP.  xin. 
sort  of  adoration  as  is  rendered  to  the  Blessed  Virgin 
and  the  Saints.  He  can  at  his  pleasure  depose  an 
Emperor,  appoint  another,  withdraw  their  functions  from 
the  electors,  cancel  any  law  issued  by  an  Emperor  or 
king,  because  he  represents  God  upon  earth  with  the 
plenitude  of  God's  authority.* 

In  these  propositions  laid  down  by  Trionfo,  with  the 
hearty  approval  of  the  Papal  Curia,  ecclesiastical  pre- 
tensions may  be  deemed  to  have  reached  their  high- 
water  mark ;  and  it  presently  appeared  that  the  tide  was 
beginning  to  turn.  As  the  view  which  placed  the  Vicar 
of  God  little  below  God  Himself  came  rather  too  late,  for 
it  went  further  than  the  opinion  of  Europe  was  now 
disposed  to  follow,  so  on  the  other  hand  the  book  of 
Marsilius  came  too  early  to  have  its  full  effect.  Two 
centuries  were  to  pass  before  the  soil  was  ready  to 
receive  the  seed  which  this  precursor  of  Luther  and 
Zwingli  had  sown.b  During  those  two  centuries  the  Popes 
steadily  declined  in  reputation  and  authority.  Some  of 

a  Papalists  used  to  quote  the  text,  '  All  power  is  given  me  in  heaven  and 
on  earth,'  as  proof  of  the  temporal  authority  of  the  Pope,  for  Christ's  power 
was  Peter's,  and  Peter's  passed  to  his  successors. 

b  A  reason  why  the  assaults  of  Marsilius  and  Ockham,  as  indeed  of  earlier 
impugners  of  the  claims  of  the  Papacy,  did  not  make  a  deeper  impression  may 
perhaps  be  found  in  the  fact  that  there  was  one  doctrine,  that  relating  to  the 
Eucharist,  which  they  did  not  dispute.  Sacerdotalism  stood  deep-rooted  in 
sacramentalism,  and  it  was  the  denial  of  the  dogma  of  the  Real  Presence  that 
in  the  sixteenth  century  undermined  the  foundation  whereon  the  power  of 
the  priesthood  and  Peter's  see  rested. 

Upon  the  struggle  of  Lewis  IV  and  the  Popes,  see  besides  Gregorovius 
(History  of  Rome  in  the  Middle  Ages},  Friedberg,  Die  mittelalterlichen  Lehren 
uber  das  Verhaltniss  von  Staat  Tind  Kirche  (1874),  and  Riezler,  Die  liter- 
arischen  Widersacher  der  P'dpste  zur  Zeit  Ludwig  des  Baiers  (1874),  both  of 
whom  deal  fully  with  Marsilius  and  Ockham.  Some  excellent  observations 
may  also  be  found  in  Mr.  R.  L.  Poole's  Illustrations  of  the  History  of  Medi- 
aeval Thought  (1884),  chaps,  viii  and  ix. 


228  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xiii.  their  moral  sway  over  men's  minds  was  lost  while  they 
dwelt  at  Avignon  under  the  shadow  of  France.  Still 
more  was  lost  in  the  Great  Schism  which  divided  the 
Church  for  more  than  a  generation  (A.D.  1378-1417);° 
and  most  of  all  was  lost  by  the  avarice  and  extortion  — 
a  cause  of  irritation  to  the  clergy  almost  as  much  as  to 
the  laity  —  of  which  not  a  few  pontiffs  were  guilty  during 
this  long  period.  After  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth 
century  the  Popes,  by  this  time  firmly  re-established 
in  Rome,  became  more  occupied  with  the  building 
up  of  a  temporal  dominion  in  Italy  than  with  the 
assertion  of  their  authority  over  emperors  and  kings. 
So  far  indeed  as  the  Emperor  was  concerned,  they  had 
the  less  need  to  trouble  him,  because  Charles  the  Fourth 
had  (A.D.  1355)  abandoned  to  the  Pope  those  territorial 
rights  over  Rome  and  Italy  for  which  his  predecessors 
had  fought.  No  succeeding  Emperor  tried  to  make  them 
good.  The  great  Council  of  Constance,  in  which 
Western  Christendom  assembled  under  the  auspices  of 
the  Emperor  Sigismund,  deposed  two  rival  Popes,  and 
obtained  the  resignation  of  a  third,  offered  an  opportunity 
which  a  man  with  the  vigour  and  loftiness  of  Henry 
the  Third  might  have  seized  to  recover  the  influence  of 
the  imperial  office  and  to  use  it  for  the  benefit  of  the 
Church.  But  Sigismund  was  no  Henry  the  Third ;  nor 
did  any  one  after  him  essay  the  perhaps  impossible  task 
of  correcting  the  abuses  of  ecclesiastical  power.  The 
Hapsburg  Frederick  the  Third,  timid  and  superstitious, 
abased  himself  before  the  Romish  Court ;  and  the  long 
line  of  his  Austrian  successors  has  generally  adhered  to 
the  alliance  then  struck. 

c  That  this  Schism  did  not  shake  the  authority  of  the  Pope  even  more  seri- 
ously shews  how  firm  was  the  hold  which  the  idea  of  the  unity  of  Christendom 
in  Church  and  State  had  upon  the  mediaeval  mind. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE  GERMANIC  CONSTITUTION  :  THE  SEVEN  ELECTORS 

THE  reign  of  Frederick  the  Second  was  not  less  fatal  to  CHAP.  xiv 
the  domestic  power  of  the  German  king  than  to  the  Euro-   Territorial 
pean   supremacy   of  the    Emperor.     His   two    Pragmatic 
Sanctions  had  conferred  rights  that  made  the  feudal  aris- 
tocracy almost  independent,  and  the  long  anarchy  of  the 
Interregnum  had  enabled  them  not  only  to  use  but  to  ex- 
tend and  fortify  their  power.      Rudolf  of  Hapsburg  had  Adolf, 
striven,  not  wholly  in  vain,  to  coerce  their  insolence,  but 
the  contest  for  the  crown  between  his  son   Albert  and  Albert  i, 
Adolf   Count  of   Nassau   which  followed   his   death,  the  I298-I3°»- 
short  and  troubled  reign  of  Albert  himself,  the  absence 
of  Henry  the  Seventh  in  Italy,  the  civil  war  of  Lewis  of  Henry  vu, 
Bavaria  and  Frederick  duke  of  Austria,  rival  claimants  of  I**~1?r* 
the  imperial  throne,  the  difficulties  in  which  Lewis,  the  sue-  Lewis  iv, 
cessful  competitor,  found  himself  involved  with  a  succes-  I3I4-I347- 
sion  of  Popes  —  all  these  circumstances  tended  more  and 
more  to  narrow  the  influence  of  the  crown  and  complete  the 
emancipation  of  the  turbulent  nobles.     They  now  became 
virtually  supreme  in  their  own  domains,  enjoying  full  juris- 
diction (certain  appeals  excepted),  the  right  of  legislation, 
privileges  of  coining  money,  of  levying  tolls  and  taxes : 
some  had  scarcely  even  a  feudal  bond  to  remind  them  of 
their  allegiance.     The  numbers  of  the  nobility  who  held 
directly  of   the  crown  had  increased  prodigiously  by  the 
extinction  of  the  dukedoms  of  Franconia  and  Swabia,  and 
the  reduction  in  area  of  that  of  Saxony :  along  the  Rhine 

229 


230  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xiv.  the  lord  of  a  single  tower  was  often  almost  an  independent 
prince.  The  petty  tyrants  whose  boast  it  was  that  they 
owed  fealty  only  to  God  and  the  Emperor  shewed  them- 
selves in  practice  equally  regardless  of  both  powers.  Pre- 
eminent were  the  three  great  houses  of  Austria,  Bavaria, 
and  Luxemburg,  this  last  having  acquired  Bohemia,  A.D. 
1309.  Next  came  the  electors,  already  considered  collec- 
tively more  important  than  the  Emperor,  and  forming  for 
themselves  considerable  principalities.  Brandenburg  and 
the  Rhenish  Palatinate  are  strong  states  before  the  end 
of  this  period ;  Bohemia  and  the  three  archbishoprics 
almost  from  its  beginning. 

The  chief  object  of  the  magnates  was  to  keep  the  mon- 
arch in  his  present  state  of  helplessness.  The  Hohen- 
staufen  had  been  strong  by  their  hereditary  dominions  as 
well  as  by  their  imperial  authority :  Frederick  I  is  said  to 
have  been  lord  of  four  hundred  castles.  Unfortunately  the 
Emperors  who  followed  that  great  house  had  not  similar 
patrimonial  possessions ;  and  indeed  Rudolf  was  chosen 
because  his  private  resources  were  too  slender  to  make  him 
an  object  of  disquiet.  Till  the  expense  which  the  crown 
entailed  had  begun  to  prove  ruinous  to  its  wearer,  the 
electors  preferred  to  confer  it  on  some  petty  prince,  such 
as  were  Rudolf  and  Adolf  of  Nassau  and  Giinther  of 
Schwartzburg,  seeking  when  they  could  to  keep  it  from 
settling  in  one  family.  They  bound  the  newly  elected 
monarch  to  respect  all  their  present  immunities,  including 
those  which  they  had  just  extorted  as  the  price  of  their 
votes  ;  they  checked  all  his  attempts  to  recover  lost  lands 
or  rights:  they  ventured  at  last  (in  1399)  to  depose  their 
anointed  head,  Wenzel,  king  of  Bohemia,  whose  dissipated 
life  and  neglect  of  his  duties  certainly  justified  their  dis- 
pleasure. Thus  fettered,  the  Emperor  sought  only  to 
make  the  most  of  his  short  tenure,  using  his  position  to 


THE   GERMANIC   CONSTITUTION  231 

aggrandize  his  family  and  raise  money  by  the  sale  of  crown  CHAP.  xiv. 
estates  and  privileges.     His  individual  action  and  personal  Policy  of  the 
relation  to  the  subject  was  replaced  by  a  merely  legal  and  EmPerors> 
formal  one :    he  represented  order  and  legitimate  owner- 
ship, and  so  far  was  still   necessary  to  the  political  sys- 
tem.    But  imperial  progresses  through  the  country  were 
abandoned :  unlike  his  predecessors,  who,  when  they  as- 
sumed the  sceptre,  had  turned  from  the  administration  of 
their  own  domains  to  the  service  of  the  nation,  he  lived 
mostly  in  his  own  states,  sometimes  beyond  the  Empire's 
frontier. 

How  thoroughly  the  national  character  of  the  office  was 
gone  is  shewn  by  the  repeated  attempts  to  bestow  it  on 
foreign  or  half-foreign  potentates,  who  could  not  fill  the 
place  of  a  German  king  of  the  good  old  vigorous  type. 
Not  to  speak  of  Richard  and  Alfonso,  the  French  Charles 
Count  of  Valois  was  proposed  against  Henry  VII,a  and 
Edward  III  of  England  actually  elected  against  Charles 
IV  (the  English  parliament  forbade  him  to  accept).  Sigis- 
mund,  though  he  belonged  to  the  house  of  Luxemburg, 
was,  when  chosen,  a  Hungarian  king  with  interests  pri- 
marily Hungarian  ;  and  George  Podiebrad  who  was  elected 
against  Frederick  III  ruled  over  a  Bohemia  which  felt 
itself  more  Slavonic  than  Germanic.  The  Emperor's  only 
hope  would  have  been  in  the  support  of  the  cities.  During  Power  of  the 
the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries  they  had  increased  Clttes' 
wonderfully  in  population,  wealth,  and  boldness :  the 
Hanseatic  confederacy  was  the  mightiest  power  of  the 
North,  and  cowed  the  Scandinavian  kings  :  the  towns  of 
Swabia  and  the  Rhine  formed  great  commercial  leagues, 
maintained  regular  wars  against  the  counter-associations 
of  the  nobility,  and  seemed  at  one  time,  by  an  alliance  with 

1  As  to  Peter  Du  Bois'  scheme  for  securing  power  in  Italy  to  the  kings  of 
France,  see  Note  XIV  at  end. 


232 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


Financial 
distress. 


CHAP.  xiv.  the  already  virtually  independent  Switzers,b  on  the  point 
of  turning  West  Germany  into  a  federation  of  free  munici- 
palities. Feudalism,  however,  was  still  too  strong;  the 
cavalry  of  the  nobles  was  irresistible  in  the  field,  and  the 
thoughtless  Wenzel,  who  might  have  helped  and  used  them, 
let  slip  a  golden  opportunity  of  repairing  the  losses  of  two 
centuries.  After  all,  the  Empire  was  perhaps  past  redemp- 
tion, for  one  fatal  ailment  paralyzed  all  its  efforts.  The 
Empire  was  poor.  The  constructive  abilities  of  Frederick  I 
and  his  grandson,  which  ought  to  have  been  applied,  as  was 
the  constructive  talent  of  the  English  Henry  II,  to  the  es- 
tablishment of  an  immediate  financial  control  by  the  crown, 
and  the  introduction  of  some  scheme  of  direct  taxation, 
were  distracted  by  their  enterprises  in  Italy ;  and  neither 
from  princes,  from  ecclesiastics,  nor  from  cities  was  any 
adequate  royal  revenue  secured.  The  crown  lands,  which 
had  suffered  heavily  under  Frederick  II,  were  further 
usurped  during  the  confusion  that  followed ;  till  at  last, 
through  the  reckless  prodigality  of  sovereigns  who  sought 
only  their  immediate  interest,  little  was  left  of  the  vast 
and  fertile  domains  along  the  Rhine  from  which  the  Saxon 
and  Franconian  Emperors  had  drawn  the  chief  part  of  their 
revenue.  Regalian  rights,  the  second  fiscal  resource,  had 
fared  no  better.  Tolls,  customs,  mines,  rights  of  coining, 
of  harbouring  Jews,  and  so  forth,  were  either  seized  or 
granted  away :  even  the  advowsons  of  churches  had  been 
sold  or  mortgaged ;  and  the  imperial  treasury  depended 
mainly  on  an  inglorious  traffic  in  honours  and  exemptions. 
Things  were  so  bad  under  Rudolf  that  the  electors  refused 
to  make  his  son  Albert  king  of  the  Romans,  declaring  that, 
while  Rudolf  lived,  the  public  revenue  which  with  difficulty 

b  The  first  League  of  the  three  Forest  Cantons  was  formed  in  1308. 
Others  were  added  by  degrees :  and  the  number  of  eight  was  completed  by 
the  accession  of  Bern  in  1353. 


THE   GERMANIC   CONSTITUTION  233 

supported  one  monarch,  could  much  less  maintain  two  at  CHAP,  xiv 
the  same  time.c  Sigismund  told  his  Diet,  'Nihil  esse 
imperio  spoliatius,  nihil  egentius,  adeo  ut  qui  sibi  ex  Ger- 
maniae  principibus  successurus  esset,  qui  praeter  patrimo- 
nium  nihil  aliud  habuerit,  apud  eum  non  imperium  sed 
potius  servitium  sit  futurum.'  Patritius,  the  secretary  of 
Frederick  III,  declared  that  the  revenues  of  the  Empire 
scarcely  covered  the  expenses  of  its  ambassadors.*1  Pov- 
erty such  as  these  expressions  point  to,  a  poverty  which 
became  greater  after  each  election,  not  only  involved  the 
failure  of  the  attempts  which  were  sometimes  made  to  recover 
usurped  rights,6  but  put  every  project  of  reform  within  or 
war  without  at  the  mercy  of  a  jealous  Diet.  The  three 
orders  of  which  that  Diet  consisted,  electors,  princes,  and 
cities/  were  each  of  them  bent  on  its  own  interests  and 
mutually  hostile ;  their  niggardly  grants  did  no  more  than 
keep  the  Empire  from  dying  of  inanition. 

The  changes  thus   briefly  described  were  in  progress   Charles  iv 
when  Charles  the  Fourth,  king  of  Bohemia,  son  of  that   ^A-D'  I34J" 

.  !378).  and 

blind  king  John  of  Bohemia  who  fell  at  Cressy,  and  grand-  ^  electoral 
son  of  the  Emperor   Henry  VII,  found   himself   settled  constitution. 

c  Quoted  by  Moser,  Romische  Kayser,  from  Chron.  Hirsaug. :  '  Regni 
vires  temporum  iniuria  nirnium  contritae  vix  uni  alendo  regi  sufficerent,  tan- 
turn  abesse  ut  sumptus  in  nutriendos  duos  reges  ferre  queant.'  So  at  Rupert's 
death,  under  whom  the  mischief  had  increased  greatly,  most  bishops  were,  we 
are  told,  better  off  than  the  Emperor. 

d  '  Prevent  us  Imperil  ita  minimi  sunt  ut  legationibus  vix  suppetant.'  — 
Quoted  by  Moser.  In  1495,  Maximilian  told  his  Diet  '  Das  romische  Reich 
sei  jetziger  Zeit  ein  grosser  Last  und  falle  davon  kleiner  Beth '  (the  Empire 
is  a  heavy  burden,  with  little  gain  therefrom)  ;  and  Granvella,  Charles  V's 
minister,  said  at  the  Diet  of  Speyer:  'The  Emperor  has,  for  the  support  of 
his  dignity,  not  a  hazel-nut's  worth  of  profit  from  the  Empire.' 

*  Albert  I  tried  in  vain  to  wrest  the  tolls  of  the  Rhine  from  the  grasp  of 
the  Rhenish  electors. 

f  The  cities  did  not,  however,  definitely  establish  their  right  to  appear  as 
an  Estate  or  College  in  the  Diet  until  A.D.  1489. 


234 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


upon  the  throne  which  he  had,  as  a  candidate  favoured  by 
the  Pope,  disputed  for  some  years  with  Lewis  IV.  His 
skilful  and  consistent  policy  aimed  at  settling  what  he 
perhaps  despaired  of  reforming,  and  the  famous  instrument 
which,  under  the  name  of  the  Golden  Bull,  became  the 
corner-stone  of  the  Germanic  constitution,  confessed  and 
legalized  the  independence  of  the  electors  and  the  power- 
lessness  of  the  crown.  The  most  conspicuous  defect  of 
the  existing  system  was  the  uncertainty  of  the  elections, 
followed  as  they  usually  were  by  a  civil  war.  It  was  this 
which  Charles  set  himself  to  redress. 

The  kingdoms  founded  on  the  ruins  of  the  Roman  Em- 
pire by  the  Teutonic  invaders  presented  in  their  original 
form  a  rude  combination  of  the  elective  with  the  heredi- 
tary principle.  One  family  in  each  tribe  had,  as  the  off- 
spring of  the  gods,  an  indefeasible  claim  to  rule,  but  from 
among  the  members  of  such  a  family  the  warriors  were 
free  to  choose  the  bravest  or  the  most  popular  as  king.g 
That  the  German  crown  came  to  be  purely  elective,  while 
in  France,  Castile,  Aragon,  England,  and  most  other  Euro- 
pean states,  the  principle  of  strict  hereditary  succession 
established  itself,  was  due  to  the  failure  of  heirs  male 
in  three  successive  dynasties  ;  to  the  restless  ambition  of 
the  nobles,  who,  since  they  were  not,  like  the  French, 
strong  enough  to  disregard  the  royal  power,  did  their  best 
to  weaken  it ;  to  the  intrigues  of  the  churchmen,  zealous 
for  a  method  of  appointment  prescribed  by  their  own  law 
and  observed  in  capitular  elections ;  to  the  wish  of  the 
Popes  to  gain  an  opening  for  their  own  influence  and  make 
effective  the  veto  which  they  claimed  ;  above  all,  to  the 
conception  of  the  imperial  office  as  one  too  holy  to  be,  in 

s  The  Aethelings  of  the  line  of  Cerdic,  among  the  West  Saxons,  the  Swedish 
Ynglings,  the  Bavarian  Agilolfmgs,  may  thus  be  compared  with  the  Achaeme- 
nids  of  Persia  or  the  heroic  houses  of  early  Greece. 


THE   GERMANIC   CONSTITUTION  235 

the  same  manner  as  the  regal,  transmissible  by  descent.  CHAP.  xiv. 
Had  the  German,  like  other  feudal  kingdoms,  remained 
merely  local,  feudal,  and  national,  it  would  without  doubt 
have  ended  by  becoming  a  hereditary  monarchy.  Trans- 
formed as  it  was  by  the  Roman  Empire,  this  could  not  be. 
The  headship  of  the  human  race  being,  like  the  Papacy, 
the  common  inheritance  of  all  mankind,  could  not  be  con- 
fined to  a  single  family,  nor  pass  like  a  private  estate  by 
the  ordinary  rules  of  succession. 

The  right  to  choose  the  war-chief  belonged,  in  the  earliest  Electoral 
ages,  to  the  whole  body  of  freemen.     Their  suffrage,  which  bodyinprimi 

<  .  five  times. 

must  have  been  very  irregularly  exercised,  became  by  de- 
grees vested  in  their  leaders,  but  the  assent  of  the  multi- 
tude, although  ensured  already,  was  needed  to  complete 
the  ceremony.  It  was  thus  that  Henry  the  Fowler,  and 
Henry  the  Saint,  and  Conrad  II  were  chosen.h  Though 
even  tradition  might  have  commemorated  what  extant 
records  place  beyond  a  doubt,  it  was  commonly  believed, 
till  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century,  that  the  elective  con- 
stitution had  been  established,  and  the  privilege  of  voting 
confined  to  seven  persons,  by  a  decree  of  Gregory  V  and 
Otto  III,  which  a  famous  jurist  describes  as  'lex  a  pontifice 
de  imperatorum  comitiis  lata,  ne  ius  eligendi  penes  popu- 
lum  Romanum  in  posterum  esset.'  *  St.  Thomas  says, 

h  Wippo,  describing  the  election  of  Conrad  the  Franconian,  says,  '  Inter 
confinia  Moguntiae  et  Wormatiae  dum  convenissent  cuncti  primates  et,  ut  ita 
dicam,  vires  et  viscera  regni,'  cii  ;  M.  G.  H.,  Script.,  xi.  257.  So  Bruno  says 
that  Henry  IV  '  regnum  .  .  .  electione  communi  suscepit ' :  M.  G.  H.,  Script, 
v.  p.  330.  So  Amandus,  secretary  of  Frederick  Barbarossa,  in  describing  his 
election,  says  :  '  Multi  illustres  heroes  ex  Lombardia,  Tuscia,  lanuensi  et  aliis 
Italiae  dominiis,  ac  maior  et  potior  pars  principum  in  Transalpine  regno.'  — 
Quoted  by  Mur.  Antiq.  Diss.  iii.  vol.  i.  p.  94.  And  see  many  other  authori- 
ties to  the  same  effect,  collected  by  Pfeffinger,  Vitriarius  illustratus. 

1  Alciatus,  De  Formula  Romani  Imperil.  He  adds  that  the  Gauls  and 
Italians  were  incensed  at  the  preference  shewn  to  Germany.  So  too  Landolfo 
Colonna,  De  Translation*  Imperil  Romani. 


236  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xiv.  <  Election  ceased  from  the  times  of  Charles  the  Great  to 
those  of  Otto  III,  when  Pope  Gregory  V  established  that 
of  the  seven  princes,  which  will  last  as  long  as  the  holy 
Roman  Church,  who  ranks  above  all  other  powers,  shall 
have  judged  expedient  for  Christ's  faithful  people.' 3  Since 
it  tended  to  exalt  the  papal  power,  this  fiction  was  accepted, 
no  doubt  honestly  accepted,  and  spread  abroad  by  the 
clergy.  And  indeed,  like  so  many  other  fictions,  it  had  a 
sort  of  foundation  in  fact.  The  premature  death  without 
an  heir  of  Otto  III,  the  fourth  of  a  line  of  monarchs  among 
whom  son  had  regularly  succeeded  to  father,  threw  back 
the  crown  into  the  gift  of  the  nation,  and  was  no  doubt 
one  of  the  chief  causes  why  it  did  not  in  the  end  become 
hereditary.* 

Thus  under  the  Saxon  and  Franconian  sovereigns,  the 
throne  was  theoretically  elective,  the  assent  of  the  chiefs 
and  their  followers  being  required,  though  little  more  likely 
to  be  refused  than  it  was  to  an  English  or  a  French  king ; 
practically  hereditary,  since  both  of  these  dynasties  suc- 
ceeded in  occupying  it  for  four  generations,  the  father  pro- 
curing the  son's  election  during  his  own  lifetime.  So  it 
might  well  have  continued  had  the  German  king  been  a 
merely  national  king  like  his  brethren  in  France  and  Eng- 
land. But,  under  the  operation  of  the  influences  already 
described,  the  territorial  aristocracy,  sometimes  aided  by 
the  Pope,  were  able  to  turn  the  developement  of  the  ancient 
constitution  into  a  new  channel,  so  that  the  German  kingdom 
became  in  point  of  law  incontestably  elective,  and  so  con- 

J  Quoted  by  Gewoldus,  De  Septemviratu  Sacri  Imperil  Romani,  himself 
a  strenuous  advocate  of  Gregory's  decree,  though  he  lived  in  the  compara- 
tively critical  days  of  Ferdinand  II.  As  late  as  A.D.  1648  we  find  Pope 
Innocent  X  maintaining  that  the  sacred  number  Seven  of  the  electors  was 
'  apostolica  auctoritate  olim  praefinitus.'  —  Bull  Zelo  Domus  in  Bullar.  Roman. 

k  Sometimes  we  hear  of  a  decree  made  by  Pope  Sergius  IV  and  his  car- 
dinals (of  course  equally  fabulous  with  Otto's).  So  John  Villani,  iv.  2. 


THE   GERMANIC   CONSTITUTION  237 

tinued  ever  thereafter.  The  precise  steps  by  which  this  CHAP.  xiv. 
came  to  pass,  and  the  nature  of  the  proceedings  at  an  elec- 
tion, have  been  matter  for  long  and  tangled  controversy. 
Some  points  remain  doubtful,  because  the  original  author- 
ities are  curt  or  vague  in  their  accounts,  especially  as 
respects  the  procedure  at  those  uncontested  elections  in 
which  a  reigning  Emperor  secured  the  choice  of  his  son 
during  his  own  lifetime.1  Without  attempting  to  discuss 
these  points,  a  few  general  propositions  may  be  stated  as 
probably  true.m 

In  the  process  of  choosing  a  German  king  to  be  after- 
wards raised  to  the  dignity  of  Roman  Emperor,  three 
stages  may  be  distinguished. 

The  first  stage  is  that  of  the  deliberations  and  negotia- 
tions of  the  magnates  which  issue  in  the  selection  of  one 
from  among  several  candidates.  For  this  process  there 
would  seem  to  have  been,  down  till  the  middle  of  the 
thirteenth  century,  no  rules  formally  prescribed  and 
observed.  There  was  no  recognized  method  of  voting, 
nor  does  the  right  of  voting  appear  to  be  confined  to  any 
specified  persons.  Things  were  in  practice  determined 
not  by  a  majority  of  votes,  but  by  the  personal,  official, 
and  territorial  weight  and  power  of  those  who  took  part. 

1  As  early  as  1152  we  read,  'Id  iuris  Roman!  Imperii  apex  habere  dicitur 
ut  non  per  sanguinis  propaginem  sed  per  principum  electionem  reges  creen- 
tur.'  —  Otto  of  Freysing,  Book  II.  c.  i .  Gulielmus  Brito,  writing  not  much 
later,  says — 

'  Est  etenim  talis  dynastia  Theutonicorum 
Ut  nullus  regnet  super  illos,  ni  prius  ilium 
Eligat  unanimis  cleri  populique   voluntas." 

—  M.  G.  H.,  Script,  xxvi.  p.  334. 

m  There  is  a  considerable  literature  on  the  early  electoral  system.  Among 
more  recent  writers,  reference  may  be  made  to  Waitz,  Deutsche  Verfassungs- 
geschichtc ;  Maurenbrecher,  Geschichtt  der  deutschen  Konigswahlen  ;  Linder, 
Die  deutschen  K'onigswahlen,  1893,  and  Der  Hergang  bei  den  deutschen  Ko- 
nigs~Lvahlen,  1899,  Schroder,  Lehrbuch  der  deutschen  Rechtsgeschichte. 


238  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xiv.  The  number  of  the  nobles  whom  custom  admitted  to  join 
might  be  greater  or  less,  but  in  fact  the  influence  of 
the  leading  princes,  ecclesiastical  and  secular,  prevailed. 
Sometimes  these  magnates  were  allowed,  or  took  it  upon 
themselves,  to  make  a  preliminary  selection,  from  all  those 
who  might  be  considered  candidates  for  the  throne,  either 
of  a  certain  small  number,  or  of  one  only,  to  be  thereupon 
presented  to  the  nobles  generally  as  the  man  fittest  to  be 
chosen.  As  early  as  1156  this  preliminary  and  informal 
selection,  which  took  place  at  the  election  of  Conrad  II  in 
1024,  of  Lothar  II  in  1125,  and  of  Frederick  I  in  1152, 
had  obtained  the  name  of  Praetaxation  ;  and  in  the  persons 
who  exercised  it  we  may  find  the  germ  of  the  electoral 
college  of  later  times.n 

The  second  stage  of  the  process  consisted  in  the  solemn 
declaration  by  the  princes,  usually  in  the  order  of  their 
official  status  or  rank,  of  their  choice  of  a  particular  person 
as  king.  This  was  the  formal  Electio  in  the  strict  sense 
of  the  word,  and  this  custom  required  to  be  unanimous. 
In  it  certain  magnates,  three  ecclesiastical  and  three  or 
four  secular,  secured  the  right  of  delivering  their  voice 
first :  and  this  prerogative  voice  would  seem  to  have  set 
them  in  a  position  of  special  authority  which  led  to  their 
being  ultimately  recognized  as  the  persons  exclusively 
entitled  to  elect.  They  were  doubtless  those,  or  the  chief 
among  those,  who  occasionally  exercised  the  function  of 
praetaxation.  Here  legal  theory  may  have  helped  to  settle 
what  custom  had  left  vague.  It  is  first  in  the  famous  law 
book  called  the  Saxon  Mirror  {Sachsenspiegel)  compiled  by 

n  In  the  case  of  a  papal  election,  a  two-thirds  majority  was  required  (as  it 
is  in  a  convention  of  the  Democratic  party  in  the  United  States  for  the  selec- 
tion of  a  Presidential  candidate).  But  an  unanimous  choice  seems  to  have 
been  originally  required  in  Germany,  and  the  need  for  it  was  first  expressly 
negatived  by  the  electors  in  their  solemn  gathering  at  Rhense  in  A.D.  1338. 


THE   GERMANIC  CONSTITUTION  239 

Eike   von  Reppgau  about  A.D.   1230,  that  six  princes  (of  CHAP.  xiv. 
whom  more  anon)  are  named  as  enjoying  a  special  right. 
They  are  said  to  be  'first  in  the  choice,'  the  first  to  make 
that   formal  expression    of  acceptance   which   technically 
constituted  the  election.0 

The  last  part  of  the  process  was  the  approval  of  the 
counts  and  other  minor  nobles,p  completed  by  that  accla- 
mation of  the  multitude  which  preserved  the  tradition  of 
choice  by  the  nation  as  a  whole,  but  which  gradually  lost 
its  importance  under  the  preponderating  influence  of  the 
great  ecclesiastical  and  secular  potentates.  As  we  find, 
down  at  least  till  the  middle  of  the  twelfth  century,  no  legal 
line  drawn  between  those  who  were  and  those  who  were 
not  entitled  to  vote  —  indeed,  so  far  as  law  went,  it  might 
be  said  that  all  nobles  and  knights  were  entitled  to  some 
sort  of  voice — there  was  evidently  a  wide  door  open  for 
disputes,  and  when  an  election  was  disputed,  no  means 
except  war  existed  for  settling  it  (Pope  Innocent  III  and 
his  successors  claimed,  but  the  Germans  denied,  a  right  of 
interference).q  Contests  there  were,  and  contests  would 
have  been  more  frequent  had  there  not  been  a  strong 
tendency  to  prefer  the  heir  of  the  preceding  sovereign, 
and  had  hot  the  crown  been  often  secured  by  a  reigning 
Emperor  for  his  son.  A  sense  of  the  danger  involved  in 
this  absence  of  fixed  rules  probably  contributed  to  make 

0  This  second  stage  was  formally  the  effective  and  binding  act,  the  election 
{Kur)  in  a  strict  sense,  though  in  fact  it  was  only  the  ratification  and  formal 
announcement  of  a  selection  already  made.     Where  there  was  no  real  con- 
test, as  where  an  Emperor  procured  by  the  exercise  of  his  influence  with  the 
princes  severally  the  election  of  his  son,  it  became  the  whole  election. 

P  The  term  laudatio,  a  declaration  of  consent  with  a  pledge  of  loyalty,  is 
used  to  describe  sometimes  this  acceptance  by  the  larger  body,  sometimes 
both  of  what  have  been  here  distinguished  as  the  second  and  third  parts  of 
the  process  of  election. 

1  See  the  Bull  Venerabilem,  already  quoted,  of  Pope  Innocent  III. 


240  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xiv.  the  nation  more  and  more  disposed  to  recognize  a  special 
right  of  choice  as  vested  in  the  few  great  potentates  who 
towered  above  the  other  princes. 

Comparing  the  electoral  constitution  of  the  Empire  at 
the  death  of  the  last  Saxon  Emperor  in  A.D.  1024,  and  at 
the  death  of  the  last  Hohenstaufen  in  1254,  we  see  that 
two  great  changes  had  passed  upon  it.  It  had  become  a 
fundamental  doctrine  that  the  Germanic  (and  imperial) 
throne,  unlike  the  thrones  of  other  countries,  was  purely 
elective.  So  clearly  did  the  princes  perceive  this  to  be 
the  keystone  of  their  freedom  that  the  influence  and  the 
liberal  offers  of  Henry  VI r  failed  to  induce  them  to  sur- 
render their  privilege.  And  at  the  same  time  that  practice 
of  preliminary  selection,  and  that  right  of  being  the  first 
to  deliver  a  formal  elective  voice,  which  have  been  already 
referred  to,  had  ripened  into  a  practically  exclusive  privi- 
lege of  election.  As  this  privilege  became  vested  in  a 
small  body,  the  assent  of  the  rest  of  the  nobility  began  to 
be  assumed  as  virtually  given  or  certain  to  be  given,  so 
that  after  a  time  it  passed  not  only  out  of  use,  but  almost 
out  of  memory.  Even  in  1198  Pope  Innocent  III  speaks 
of  'princes  specially  entitled  to  choose  the  Roman  king.8 
On  the  double  choice  of  Richard  and  Alfonso,  A.D.  1257, 
the  substantial  question  was  as  to  the  majority  of  votes  in 
the  electoral  college:*  neither  then  nor  afterwards  was 
there  any  practical  recognition  of  the  rights  of  the  other 
princes,  counts,  and  barons,  important  as  their  voices  had 
been  three  centuries  earlier. 

The  origin  of  that  college  is  a  matter  somewhat  intricate 

r  See  pp.  205-206,  supra. 

*  '  Principes  ad  quos  principaliter  spectat  regis  Romani  electio.' 

*  The  electors  who  chose   Richard   do  indeed  in   their  report   to  Pope 
Urban  IV  say  that  they  acted  after  deliberating  with  other  magnates,  and 
by  their  common  consent,  but  they  assert  that  by  custom  the  election  belongs 
to  certain  princes,  seven  in  number. 


GERMANIC   CONSTITUTION:    THE   ELECTORS      241 

and  obscure.  At  the  election  of  Frederick  I  in  A.D.  1152,  CHAP.  xiv. 
certain  princes  led  and  decided  the  choice  of  the  nation,  The  seven 
and  at  the  election  of  Philip  in  1198  the  preponderant  electors- 
influence  of  a  few  is  again  apparent0  But  we  do  not 
yet  find  anything  to  indicate  that  a  legal  right  as  dis- 
tinguished from  a  practically  admitted  preeminence  had 
become  vested  in  any  particular  persons. x  First  in 
the  Sachsenspiegel  do  we  find  six  named  as  specially, 
one  can  hardly  say  exclusively,  entitled,  viz.  the  three 
Rhenish  archbishops  —  the  Count  Palatine  of  the  Rhine, 
the  duke  of  the  Saxons,  and  the  Margrave  of  Brandenburg. 
Other  authorities  of  the  time  recognize  a  seventh,  the  king 
of  Bohemia,  whom  the  Sachsenspiegel  -rejects  as  not  being 
German.  Then  in  A.D.  1263  a  letter  of  Pope  Urban  IV 
declares  (adopting  the  view  stated  by  the  friends  of 
Richard  of  Cornwall,  and  by  that  time  generally  accepted 
in  Germany),  that  by  immemorial  custom  the  right  of 
choosing  the  Roman  king  belongs  to  seven  persons,  the 
seven  who  had  just  divided  their  votes  on  Richard  and 
Alfonso  of  Castile.  Of  these  seven,  the  three  archbishops 
of  Mentz,  Treves,  and  Cologne,  pastors  of  the  oldest  and 
richest  sees,  represented  the  German  Church  and  had 
always  borne  a  leading  part  in  elections.  The  other  four 
ought,  according  to  the  ancient  constitution,  to  have  been 
the  dukes  of  the  four  nations,  Franks,  Swabians,  Saxons, 
Bavarians,  to  whom  had  also  belonged  the  four  great 
offices  of  the  imperial  household.  But  of  these  dukedoms 
the  two  first  named  were  now  extinct,  and  their  place  and 

u  The  English  Richard  of  Hoveden,  writing  of  this  election,  which  hap- 
pened in  his  lifetime,  singles  out  four  princes  as  chief  electors,  viz.  the  arch- 
bishops of  Mentz  and  Cologne,  the  duke  of  Saxony,  and  the  Count  Palatine 
of  the  Rhine  (ad  ann.  1198). 

x  There  was  no  authority  which  would  have  been  recognized  as  legally 
competent  to  confer  a  special  right.     Such  constitution  as  the  Empire  had 
rested  upon  custom  only. 
R 


242  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xiv.  power  in  the  State,  as  well  as  the  household  offices  they 
had  held,  had  descended  upon  two  principalities  of  more 
recent  origin,  those,  namely,  of  the  Palatinate  of  the  Rhine 
and  the  Margraviate  of  Brandenburg.  The  Saxon  duke, 
though  with  greatly  narrowed  dominions,  retained  his 
leading  place  and  his  office  of  arch-marshal,  and  the  claim 
of  his  Bavarian  compeer  would  have  been  equally  indisput- 
able had  it  not  so  happened  that  both  he  and  the  Palsgrave 
of  the  Rhine  were  members  of  the  great  house  of  Wittels- 
bach.  This  house  had  acquired  the  dukedom  of  Bavaria  in 
1 1 80  and  the  Palatinate,  which  represented  the  vote  of  the 
extinct  dukedom  of  Lorraine,  in  1214;  but  as  both  digni- 
ties were  united  in  one  person,  no  difficulty  arose  until  the 
death  of  Duke  Otto  the  Illustrious  in  1253.  When  his 
sons  shared  his  dominions,  Lewis  becoming  Palsgrave,  and 
Henry  Duke  of  Bavaria,  nothing  was  settled  as  to  the  vote 
and  other  rights  of  an  elector,  and  before  long  both  sons 
claimed  these,  and  both  with  apparently  reasonable 
grounds.  The  number  Seven  was  now,  however,  begin- 
ning to  be  recognized  as  sacred  :  the  king  of  Bohemia7 
would  not  relinquish  the  place  to  which  he  laid  claim  as 
cupbearer ;  and  the  other  electors  were  unwilling  to  see 
two  votes  enjoyed  by  one  family.  Thus  a  contest,  which 
more  than  once  nearly  led  to  war,  arose  between  the  rival 
lines  of  Wittelsbach,  and  between  the  Bavarian  line  (whose 
title  was  thought  the  weaker  of  the  two)  and  the  king  of 
Bohemia.  Rudolf  I,  who  in  1289  pronounced  in  favour  of 

y  The  claim  of  the  king  of  Bohemia  seems  to  have  been  made  technically 
in  respect  of  his  office  of  cupbearer,  practically  because  he  was  the  equal  in 
power  and  rank  of  any  of  the  other  electors.  It  was  disputed  partly  on  the 
ground  that  his  kingdom  was  not  properly  German.  '  Rex  Bohemiae  qui 
pincerna  est  non  eligit  quia  non  est  Teutonicus'  (Albert.  Stad.  A.D.  1240,  fol- 
lowing the  phrase  of  the  Sachsenspiegel,  '  Die  schenke  des  rikes  die  koning 
von  behemen,  die  ne  heuet  nenen  kore,  umme  dat  he  nicht  diidesch  nis'). — 
M.  G.  H.t  Script,  xi.  p.  367. 


GERMANIC   CONSTITUTION:    THE   ELECTORS     243 

Bohemia,  and  Lewis  IV,  who  directed  that  the  vote  should  CHAP.XIV. 
be  exercised  by  the  two  lines  alternately,  in  vain  attempted 
to  settle  it,  nor  was  it  laid  to  rest  until  the  issuing  and  con- 
firming, at  the  Diets  of  Niirnberg  and  Metz  in  1356,  of 
Charles  IV's  Golden  Bull.  This  instrument,  thenceforth  Golden  Bull 
regarded  as  a  fundamental  law  of  the  Empire,  after  finally  °^hi 
assigning  the  disputed  vote  and  office  of  cupbearer  to  A.D.  1356. 
Bohemia  (of  which  Charles  was  then  king)  proceeds  to  lay 
down  a  variety  of  rules  for  the  conduct  of  imperial  elec- 
tions. Frankfort  is  fixed  as  the  place  of  election,  as  a 
tradition  dating  from  East  Prankish  days  preserved  the 
feeling  that  both  election  and  coronation  ought  to  take 
place  on  Prankish  soil ;  the  archbishop  of  Mentz  is  named 
convener  of  the  electoral  college ;  to  Bohemia  is  given  the 
first,  to  the  Count  Palatine  the  second  place  among  the 
secular  electors.  A  majority  of  votes  was  in  all  cases  to 
be  decisive.  As  to  each  electorate  there  was  attached  a 
great  office,  it  was  supposed  as  early  as  the  time  of  the 
Sachs enspiegel  that  this  was  the  title  by  which  the  vote 
was  possessed  ;  though  in  truth  the  office  and  the  right  of 
election  had  both  the  same  source,  for  the  great  offices 
naturally  belonged  to  the  greatest  of  the  imperial  feuda- 
tories. The  three  prelates  were  archchancellors  of  Ger- 
many, Gaul  and  Burgundy,  and  Italy  respectively  :  Bohemia 
cupbearer,  the  Palsgrave  seneschal,  Saxony  marshal,  and 
Brandenburg  chamberlain.2 

z  The  names  and  offices  of  the  seven  are  concisely  given  in  these  lines, 
which  appear  in  the  treatise  of  Marsilius  of  Padua,  De  Translations  Imperii 
Romani,  c.  xi  (printed  in  Goldast,  Monarchia  Imperii,  ii.  p.  153)  •  — 
'  Moguntinensis,  Trevirensis,  Coloniensis, 
Quilibet  imperii  sit  Cancellarius  horum; 
Et  Palatinus  dapifer,  Dux  portitor  ensis, 
Marchio  praepositus  camerae,  pincerna  Bohemus, 
Hi  statuunt  dominum  cunctis  per  saecula  summum.' 
It  is  worth  while  to  place  beside  this  the  first  stanza  of  Schiller's  ballad, 


244 


THE    HOLY    ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  xiv.  These  arrangements,  under  which  disputed  elections  be- 
came far  less  frequent,  remained  undisturbed  till  the  break- 
ing out  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  when  the  Emperor 
Ferdinand  II  by  an  unwarranted  stretch  of  prerogative 
deprived  (in  1621)  the  Palsgrave  Frederick  (king  of  Bo- 
hemia and  husband  of  Elizabeth,  the  daughter  of  James  I 
of  England)  of  his  electoral  vote,  and  transferred  it  (1623) 
to  his  own  partisan,  Maximilian  of  Bavaria.  At  the  peace 
of  Westphalia  the  mediaeval  mysticism  which  revered  the 
number  Seven  had  become  out  of  date,  so  the  Palsgrave 
was  reinstated  as  eighth  elector,  Bavaria  retaining  her 
vote  and  rank,  but  with  a  provision  that  if  the  Bavarian 
branch  of  the  house  of  Wittelsbach  should  come  to  an 
end,  the  Palsgrave  should  step  into  its  place,  which  ac- 
cordingly happened  on  the  extinction  of  the  Bavarian  line 
in  1777.  The  sacred  number  having  been  once  broken 
through,  less  scruple  was  felt  in  making  further  changes. 
In  A.D.  1692,  the  Emperor  Leopold  I  conferred  a  ninth 
electorate  on  the  house  of  Brunswick-Liineburg,  which 
was  then  in  possession  of  the  duchy  of  Hanover  and  suc- 
ceeded to  the  throne  of  Great  Britain  in  1714 ;  and,  in 


Eighth 
electorate. 


Ninth 
electorate. 


Der  Graf  von  ffapsburg,  in  which  the  coronation  feast  of  Rudolf  is 
described :  — 

'  Zu  Aachen  in  seiner  Kaiserpracht, 

Im  alterthiimlichen  Saale, 
Sass  Konig  Rudolphs  heilige  Macht 

Beim  festlichen  Kronungsmahle. 
Die  Speisen  trug  der  Pfalzgraf  des  Rheins, 
Es  schenkte  der  Bohme  des  perlenden  Weins, 

Und  alle  die  Wahler,  die  sieben, 
Wie  der  Sterne  Chor  um  die  Sonne  sich  stellt, 
Umstanden  geschaftig  den  Herrscher  der  Welt, 

Die  Wiirde  des  Amtes  zu  iiben.' 

It  is  a  poetical  licence,  however  (as  Schiller  himself  admits),  to  bring  the 
Bohemian  there,  for  King  Ottocar  was  far  away  at  home,  mortified  at  his  own 
rejection,  and  already  meditating  war. 


GERMANIC  CONSTITUTION:    THE   ELECTORS      245 

A.D.  1708,  the  assent  of  the  Diet  thereto  was  obtained.     It  CHAP.XIV. 
was  in  this  way  that  English  kings  came  again  to  vote, 
as  Richard  the  First  had  voted  five  centuries  before,  at 
the  election  of  a  Roman  Emperor. 

It  is  not  a  little  curious  that  the  only  potentate  who 
continued  down  to  our  own  days  to  entitle  himself  Elector 
should  be  one  who  never  actually  joined  in  electing  an 
Emperor,  having  been  under  the  arrangements  of  the  old 
Empire  a  simple  Landgrave.a  In  A.D.  1803,  Napoleon, 
among  other  sweeping  changes  in  the  Germanic  constitu- 
tion, procured  the  extinction  of  the  electorates  of  Cologne 
and  Treves,  annexing  their  territories  to  France,  and  gave 
the  title  of  Elector,  as  the  highest  after  that  of  king,  to 
the  Duke  of  Wurtemberg,  the  Margrave  of  Baden,  the 
Landgrave  of  Hessen-Cassel,  and  the  Archbishop  of  Salz- 
burg.5 Three  years  afterwards  the  Empire  itself  ended, 
and  the  title  became  meaningless. 

As  the  Germanic  Empire  is  the  most  conspicuous  ex- 
ample of  a  monarchy  not  hereditary  that  the  modern  world 
has  seen,  we  may  pause  for  a  moment  to  consider  what 
light  its  history  throws  upon  the  character  of  elective 
monarchy  in  general,  a  contrivance  which  has  always  had 
attractions  for  a  certain  class  of  political  theorists. 

»  The  electoral  prince  (Kurfurst)  of  Hessen-Cassel.  His  retention  of  the 
title  had  this  advantage,  that  it  enabled  the  Germans  readily  to  distinguish 
electoral  Hesse  (Kur-Hessen)  from  the  Grand  Duchy  (Hessen-Darmstadt) 
and  the  landgraviate  (Hessen-Homburg).  This  last  relic  of  the  electoral 
system  passed  away  in  1866,  when  the  Elector  of  Hessen  was  dethroned,  and 
his  territories  (to  the  satisfaction  of  the  inhabitants,  whom  he  had  worried  by 
a  long  course  of  petty  tyrannies)  annexed  to  the  Prussian  kingdom,  along 
with  Hanover,  Nassau,  and  the  free  city  of  Frankfort. 

b  France  having  annexed  the  whole  left  bank  of  the  Rhine,  the  archiepis- 
copal  chair  of  Mentz  was  transferred  to  Regensburg.  It  was  now  the  only 
spiritual  electorate,  for  the  archbishopric  of  Salzburg  had  been  secularized  for 
the  benefit  of  the  archduke  Ferdinand  of  Austria,  in  order  to  compensate  him 
for  the  loss  of  Tuscany. 


246 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  XIV. 


Objects  of  an 
elective  mon- 
archy :  how 
far  attained 
in  Germany, 

Choice  of  the 
fittest. 


Restraint  of 
the  sovereign. 


First  let  it  be  observed  how  difficult,  one  might  almost 
say  impossible,  it  was  found  to  maintain  in  practice  the 
elective  principle.  In  point  of  law,  the  imperial  throne 
was  from  the  tenth  century  to  the  nineteenth  absolutely 
open  to  any  orthodox  Christian  candidate.  But  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  the  competition  was  confined  to  a  few 
powerful  families,  and  there  was  always  a  strong  tendency 
for  the  crown  to  become  hereditary  in  some  one  of  these. 
Thus  the  Franconian  Emperors  held  it  from  A.D.  1024  till 
1125,  the  Hohenstaufen,  themselves  the  heirs  of  the  Fran- 
conians,  for  more  than  a  century  (1138-1254  with  an  in- 
terruption of  fifteen  years);  the  house  of  Luxemburg 
enjoyed  it  during  four  (though  not  continuous)  reigns, 
and  when  in  the  fifteenth  century  it  fell  into  the  tenacious 
grasp  of  the  Hapsburgs,  they  managed  to  retain  it  thence- 
forth (with  but  one  trifling  interruption)  till  it  vanished 
out  of  nature  altogether.  Therefore  the  chief  benefit 
which  the  scheme  of  elective  sovereignty  seems  to  prom- 
ise, that  of  putting  the  fittest  man  in  the  highest  place, 
was  but  seldom  attained,  and  attained  even  then  rather 
by  good  fortune  than  by  design.  Yet  it  is  to  be  noted 
that  every  monarch  from  Henry  the  Fowler  down  to 
Charles  IV,  a  space  of  four  centuries,  was  a  man  of 
character  and  energy,  who  spent  himself  freely  in  the  ser- 
vice of  the  State.  Germany  had  no  such  ruler  as  England 
suffered  from  in  John,  or  Edward  II,  or  Richard  II ;  nor 
was  the  average  of  capacity  so  high  among  the  kings  of 
France. 

No  similar  objection  can  be  brought  against  the  second 
ground  on  which  an  elective  system  has  sometimes  been 
advocated,  its  operation  in  moderating  the  power  of  the 
crown,  for  this  was  attained  in  the  fullest  and  most  ruin- 
ous measure.  We  are  reminded  of  the  man  in  the  fable, 
who  opened  a  sluice  to  water  his  garden,  and  saw  his 


GERMANIC  CONSTITUTION:    THE   ELECTORS      247 

house  swept  away  by  the  furious  torrent.  The  power  of  CHAP.  xiv. 
the  crown  was  not  moderated  but  destroyed.  Each  suc- 
cessful candidate  was  forced  to  purchase  his  title  by  the 
sacrifice  of  rights  which  had  belonged  to  his  predecessors, 
and  must  repeat  the  same  shameful  policy  later  in  his  reign 
to  procure  the  election  of  his  son.  Feeling  at  the  same 
time  that  his  family  could  not  make  sure  of  keeping  the 
throne,  he  treated  it  as  a  life-tenant  is  apt  to  treat  his  estate, 
seeking  only  to  make  out  of  it  the  largest  present  profit. 
And  the  electors,  aware  of  the  strength  of  their  position,  pre- 
sumed upon  it  and  abused  it  to  assert  an  independence  such 
as  the  nobles  of  other  countries  could  never  have  aspired  to. 

Modern   political   speculation  supposes  the   method  of  Recognition 
appointing  a  ruler  by  the  votes  of  his  subjects,  as  opposed  °/tfte  P°PU- 

,  .  ,  .tar  will. 

to  the  system  of  hereditary  succession,  to  be  an  assertion 
by  the  people  of  their  own  will  as  the  ultimate  fountain  of 
authority,  an  acknowledgement  by  the  prince  that  he  is  no 
more  than  their  minister  and  deputy.  To  the  theory  of 
the  Holy  Empire  nothing  could  be  more  repugnant.  This 
will  best  appear  when  the  aspect  of  the  system  of  election 
at  different  epochs  in  its  history  is  compared  with  the  cor- 
responding changes  in  the  composition  of  the  electoral 
body  which  have  been  described  as  in  progress  from  the 
ninth  to  the  fourteenth  century.  In  very  early  days,  the 
tribe  chose  a  ruler,  who  was,  though  he  usually  belonged 
to  the  most  noble  family,  little  more  than  the  first  among 
his  peers,  with  a  power  circumscribed  by  the  will  of  his 
subjects.  In  the  tenth  and  eleventh  centuries,  the  right 
of  choice  had  passed  into  the  hands  of  the  magnates,  and 
the  people  were  only  asked  to  assent.  In  the  same  meas- 
ure had  the  relation  of  prince  and  subject  taken  a  new 
aspect.  We  must  not  expect  to  find,  in  such  rude  times, 
a  clear  apprehension  of  the  technical  quality  of  the  elective 
process,  and  the  throne  had  indeed  become  for  a  season  so 


248  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xiv.  nearly  hereditary  that  the  election  was  often  a  mere  matter 
of  form.  But  it  seems  to  have  been  regarded,  not  as  a 
delegation  of  authority  by  the  nobles  and  people,  with  a 
power  of  resumption  implied,  but  rather  as  their  subjec- 
tion of  themselves  to  the  monarch  who  enjoys,  as  of  his 
own  right,  a  wide  and  ill-defined  prerogative.  In  yet  later 
times,  when,  as  has  been  shewn  above,  the  assembly  of 
the  chieftains  and  the  applauding  shout  of  the  host  had 
been  superseded  by  the  secret  conclave  of  the  seven  elec- 
toral princes,  the  strict  legal  view  of  election  became  fully 
established,  and  no  one  was  supposed  to  have  any  title  to 
the  crown  except  what  a  majority  of  votes  might  confer 
upon  him.  Meantime,  however,  the  conception  of  the  im- 
perial office  itself  had  been  thoroughly  permeated  by  reli- 
gious ideas  ;  and  the  fact  that  the  sovereign  did  not,  like 
other  princes,  reign  by  hereditary  right,  but  by  the  choice 
of  certain  persons,  was  supposed  to  be  an  enhancement 
Conception  of  and  consecration  of  his  dignity.  The  electors,  to  draw 
the  electoral  wnat  mav  seem  a  subtle,  but  is  nevertheless  a  real  distinc- 

functwn,  J 

tion,  selected,  but  did  not  create.  They  only  named  the 
person  who  was  to  receive  what  it  was  not  theirs  to  give. 
God,  say  the  mediaeval  writers,  not  deigning  to  interfere 
visibly  in  the  affairs  of  this  world,  has  willed  that  these 
seven  princes  of  Germany  should  discharge  the  function 
which  once  belonged  to  the  senate  and  people  of  Rome, 
that  of  choosing  His  earthly  viceroy  in  matters  temporal. 
But  it  is  immediately  from  Himself  that  the  authority  of 
this  viceroy  comes,  and  men  can  have  towards  him  no 
relation  except  that  of  obedience.  It  was  in  this  period, 
therefore,  when  the  Emperor  was  in  practice  the  mere 
nominee  of  the  electors,  that  the  belief  in  his  divine  right 
stood  highest,  to  the  exclusion  either  of  the  mutual  respon- 
sibility of  feudalism,  or  of  any  practically  enforcible  respon- 
sibility to  the  people. 


GERMANIC  CONSTITUTION:    THE   ELECTORS      249 

Peace  and  order  appeared  to  be  promoted  by  the  institu-  CHAP.  xiv. 
tions  of  Charles  IV,  which  removed  one  fruitful  cause  of   General 
civil  war.      But  these  seven    electoral   princes   acquired,  ^hirie 
with  their  extended  privileges,  a  marked  and  dangerous  polity. 
predominance   in    Germany.     They  had  once  already,  in 
their  famous    meeting   at    Rhensec  in  1338,  acted  as  an 
independent  body,  repudiating  in  the  name  of  the  nation 
the  extravagant  claims  of  the  Pope,  and  declaring  that  it 
was  by  their  election  alone  that  the  Emperor  acquired  his 
rights.     The  position  which  they  had  then  assumed,  in  a 
heartily  patriotic  spirit,  was    now  legalized  and  made  per- 
manent.    They  became  a  separate  order  in  the  State,  and 
were   to   enjoy  full    regalian    rights   in    their    territories.*1 
Causes  were   not  to  be   evoked   from   their   courts,  save 
when    justice   should    have   been  denied :    their    consent 
was   necessary  to  all    public  acts  of  consequence.     They 
claimed,  as  the  choosers  of  the   sovereign,  to  be  the  rep- 
resentatives of  the  ancient  Roman  Senate :  and,  since  in 
the  Middle  Ages  every  institution  must  have  its  religious 
side,  the  persons  of  these  senators  were  held  to  be  sacred, 

c  See  p.  225.  Rhense  is  a  hamlet  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine,  some  four 
or  five  miles  above  Coblentz.  A  little  way  north  of  it,  and  on  the  very  shore, 
between  the  stream  and  the  railway,  stands,  half  hidden  by  walnut  trees, 
the  so-called  KSnigsstuhl,  a  modern  restoration  of  the  building  erected  by 
Charles  IV  in  1376  for  the  meetings  of  the  electors,  who  from  long  time 
past  had  been  wont  to  assemble  here.  It  was  the  point  where  the  terri- 
tories of  the  four  Rhenish  electors  touched  one  another.  Here  several  im- 
perial elections  were  made  :  the  last,  Rupert's,  in  1400. 

d  Goethe,  whose  imagination  was  wonderfully  attracted  by  the  splendours 
of  the  old  Empire,  has  given  in  the  second  part  of  Faust  a  sort  of  fancy  sketch 
of  the  origin  of  the  great  offices  and  the  territorial  independence  of  the  Ger- 
man princes.  Two  lines  express  concisely  the  fiscal  rights  granted  by  the 
Emperor  to  the  electors  :  — 

'  Dann  Steuer,  Zins  und  Beed ',  Lehn  und  Geleit  und  Zoll, 
Berg-,  Salz-  und  Munz-regal  euch  angehoren  solL' 

Maximilian  said  of  Charles  I V :  '  Carolo  quarto  pestilentior  pestis  nunquam 
alias  contigit  Germaniae.' 


250  THE    HOLY    ROMAN    EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xiv.  and  the  seven  mystic  luminaries  of  the  Holy  Empire,  typi- 
fied by  the  seven  lamps  of  the  Apocalypse,  soon  gained 
much  of  the  Emperor's  hold  on  popular  reverence,  as  well 
as  that  actual  power  which  he  lacked.  To  Charles,  who 
viewed  the  German  Empire  much  as  Rudolf  had  viewed 
the  Roman,  this  result  came  not  unforeseen.  For  him, 
the  old  dreams  of  world  dominion  had  become  as  remote 
and  obsolete  as  the  dream  of  recovering  Jerusalem.  With 
few  scruples,  and  little  sense  of  what  the  honour  of  his 
crown  required,  he  was  an  astute  and  thoroughly  practical 
politician.  Nothing  of  the  old  chivalric  spirit  of  his  grand- 
father Henry  appears  in  his  character  or  his  conduct.  He 
saw  in  his  office  a  means  of  serving  personal  ends,  and 
to  them,  while  appearing  to  exalt  by  elaborate  ceremo- 
nies its  ideal  dignity,  he  deliberately  sacrificed  what  real 
strength  was  left.  The  object  which  he  sought  steadily 
through  life  was  the  prosperity  of  the  Bohemian  kingdom, 
and  the  advancement  of  his  own  house.  In  the  Golden 
Bull,  whose  seal  bears  the  legend  — 

'  Roma  caput  mundi  regit  orbis  frena  rotundi ' e  — 

there  is  not  a  word  of  Rome  or  of  Italy.  To  Germany 
he  was  indirectly  a  benefactor,  by  the  foundation  of  the 
University  of  Prague,*  the  mother  of  all  her  schools : 
otherwise  her  bane.  He  legalized  anarchy,  and  called  it  a 
constitution.  The  sums  expended  in  obtaining  the  ratifi- 
cation of  the  Golden  Bull,  in  procuring  the  election  of  his 
son  Wenzel,  in  aggrandizing  Bohemia  at  the  expense  of 
Germany,  had  been  amassed  by  keeping  a  market  in  which 
honours  and  exemptions,  with  what  lands  the  crown  re- 
tained, were  put  up  openly  to  be  bid  for.  In  Italy  the 

e  This  line  is  said  to  be  as  old  as  the  time  of  Otto  III. 

f  The  University  of  Prague  was  founded  in  A.D.  1347,  on  the  model  of  the 
University  of  Paris,  where  Charles  had  himself  studied.  After  it  came  Vienna 
(1365),  Erfurt  (1379).  Heidelberg  (1385-1386). 


GERMANIC   CONSTITUTION:    THE   ELECTORS      251 

Ghibelines  saw,  with  shame  and  rage,  their  chief  hasten  CHAP.  xiv. 
to  Rome  with  a  scanty  retinue,  and  return  from  it  as 
swiftly,  at  the  mandate  of  an  Avignonese  Pope,  leaving 
the  city  the  very  day  on  which  he  had  been  crowned, 
halting  on  his  route  only  to  traffic  away  the  last  rights  of 
his  Empire.  The  Guelf  might  cease  to  hate  a  power  he 
could  now  despise. 

Thus,  alike  at  home  and  abroad,  the  German  king  had 
become  practically  powerless  by  the  loss  of  his  feudal 
privileges,  and  saw  the  authority  that  had  once  been  his 
parcelled  out  among  a  crowd  of  rapacious  nobles.  Mean- 
time how  had  it  fared  with  the  rights  which  he  claimed 
by  virtue  of  the  imperial  crown  ? 


CHAPTER   XV 

THE   EMPIRE   AS   AN    INTERNATIONAL   POWER 

CHAP.  xv.  THAT  the  Roman  Empire  survived  the  seemingly  mortal 
Theory  of  the  wound  it  had  received  at  the  era  of  the  Great  Interreg- 
RomanEm-  num>  and  continued  to  put  forth  pretensions  which  no 
fourteenth  one  was  likely  to  make  good  where  the  Hohenstaufen 
andfifteenth  had  failed,  has  been  attributed  to  its  identification  with 
centuries.  ^e  German  kingdom,  in  which  some  life  was  still  left. 
But  this  was  far  from  being  the  only  cause  which  saved 
it  from  extinction.  It  had  not  ceased  to  be  upheld  in 
the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries  by  the  same  singu- 
lar theory  which  had  in  the  ninth  and  tenth  been  strong 
enough  to  re-establish  it  in  the  West.  The  character  of 
that  theory  was  indeed  somewhat  changed,  for  if  not  posi- 
tively less  religious,  it  was  less  exclusively  so.  In  the 
days  of  Charles  and  Otto,  the  Empire,  in  so  far  as  it  was 
anything  more  than  a  tradition  from  times  gone  by,  rested 
upon  the  belief  that  with  the  Visible  Church  there  must 
be  coextensive  a  single  Christian  state  under  one  head 
and  governor.  But  now  that  the  Emperor's  headship  had 
been  repudiated  by  the  Pope,  and  his  interference  in  mat- 
ters of  religion  denounced  as  a  repetition  of  the  sin  of 
Uzziah ;  now  that  the  memory  of  mutual  injuries  had 
kindled  an  unquenchable  hatred  between  the  champions 
of  the  ecclesiastical  and  those  of  the  civil  power,  it  was 
natural  that  the  latter,  while  they  urged,  fervently  as  ever, 
the  divine  sanction  given  to  the  imperial  office,  should  at 
the  same  time  be  led  to  seek  some  further  basis  whereon 


THE   EMPIRE   AS   AN   INTERNATIONAL  POWER      253 

to  establish  its  claims.  What  that  basis  was,  and  how  CHAP.  xv. 
they  were  guided  to  it,  will  best  appear  when  a  word  or 
two  has  been  said  on  the  nature  of  the  change  that  had 
passed  on  Europe  in  the  course  of  the  three  preceding 
centuries,  and  the  progress  of  the  human  mind  during  the 
same  period. 

Such  has  been  the  accumulated  wealth  of  literature, 
and  so  rapid  the  advances  of  science  among  us  since  the 
close  of  the  Middle  Ages,  that  it  is  not  now  possible  by 
any  effort  fully  to  enter  into  the  feelings  with  which  the 
relics  of  antiquity  were  regarded  by  those  who  saw  in 
them  their  only  possession.  It  is  indeed  true  that  modern 
art  and  literature  and  philosophy  have  been  produced  by 
the  working  of  new  minds  upon  old  materials :  that  in 
thought,  as  in  nature,  we  see  no  new  creation.  But  with 
us  the  old  has  been  transformed  and  overlaid  by  the  new 
till  its  origin  is  forgotten  :  to  them  ancient  books  were 
the  only  standard  of  taste,  the  only  vehicle  of  truth,  the 
only  stimulus  to  reflection.  Hence  it  was  that  the  most 
learned  man  was  in  those  days  esteemed  the  greatest : 
hence  the  creative  energy  of  an  age  was  exactly  propor- 
tioned to  its  knowledge  of  and  its  reverence  for  the  writ- 
ten monuments  of  those  that  had  gone  before.  For  until 
they  can  look  forward,  men  must  look  back :  till  they 
should  have  reached  the  level  of  the  old  civilization,  the 
nations  of  mediaeval  Europe  must  continue  to  live  upon 
its  memories.  Over  them,  as  over  us,  the  common  dream 
of  all  mankind  had  power ;  but  to  them,  as  to  the  ancient 
world,  that  golden  age  which  seems  now  to  glimmer  on 
the  horizon  of  the  future  was  shrouded  in  the  clouds  of 
the  past.  It  is  to  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries 
that  we  are  accustomed  to  assign  that  new  birth  of  the 
human  spirit  —  if  it  ought  not  rather  to  be  called  a  re- 
newal of  its  strength  and  quickening  of  its  sluggish  life  — 


254 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  XV. 


Revival  of 
learning  and 
literature, 
A.D. 
1100-1400. 


Growing 
freedom  of 
spirit. 


with  which  the  modern  time  begins.  And  the  date  is 
well  chosen,  for  it  was  then  first  that  the  transcendently 
powerful  influence  of  Greek  literature  began  to  work  upon 
the  world.  But  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  for  a  long 
time  previous  there  had  been  in  progress  a  great  revival 
of  learning,  and  still  more  of  zeal  for  learning,  which 
being  caused  by  and  directed  towards  the  literature  and 
institutions  of  Rome,  might  fitly  be  called  the  Roman  or 
Latin  Renaissance.  The  twelfth  century  saw  this  revival 
begin  with  that  eager  study  of  the  legislation  of  Justinian, 
whose  influence  on  the  doctrines  of  imperial  prerogative 
has  been  noticed  already.  The  thirteenth  witnessed  the 
rapid  spread  of  the  scholastic  philosophy,  a  body  of  sys- 
tems most  alien,  both  in  subject  and  in  method,  to  any- 
thing that  had  arisen  among  the  ancients,  yet  one  to 
whose  developement  Greek  metaphysics  and  the  theology 
of  the  Latin  fathers  had  largely  contributed,  and  the  spirit 
of  whose  reasonings  was  far  more  free  than  the  presumed 
orthodoxy  of  its  conclusions  suffered  to  appear.  In  the 
thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries  there  arose  in  Italy 
the  first  great  masters  of  painting  and  song ;  and  the 
literature  of  the  new  languages,  springing  into  the  fulness 
of  life  in  the  Divina  Commedia,  adorned  not  long  after 
by  the  names  of  Petrarch  and  Chaucer,  assumed  at  once 
its  place  as  a  great  and  ever-growing  power  in  the  affairs 
of  men. 

Now,  along  with  the  literary  revival,  partly  caused  by, 
partly  causing  it,  there  had  been  also  a  wonderful  stirring 
and  uprising  in  the  mind  of  Europe.  The  yoke  of  church 
authority  still  pressed  heavily  on  the  souls  of  men ;  yet 
some  had  been  found  to  shake  it  off,  and  many  more 
murmured  in  secret.  The  tendency  was  one  which 
shewed  itself  in  various  and  sometimes  apparently  oppo- 
site directions.  The  revolt  of  the  Albigenses,  the  spread 


THE   EMPIRE   AS   AN   INTERNATIONAL   POWER      255 

of  the  Cathari  and  other  so-called  heretics,  the  excitement  CHAP.  xv. 

created   by  the  writings  of   Wiclif  and  Huss,  witnessed 

to  the  fearlessness  wherewith  it  could  assail  the  dominant 

theology.     It   was    present,    however   skilfully   disguised, 

among   those    scholastic   doctors  who   busied   themselves 

with  proving  by  natural  reason  the  dogmas  of  the  Church : 

for  the   power  which    can  forge   fetters   can   also   break 

them.     It  took  a  form  more  dangerous  because  of  a  more 

direct  application  to  facts,  in  the  attacks,  so  often  repeated 

from  Arnold  of  Brescia  downwards,  upon  the  wealth  and 

corruptions   of   the   clergy,    and   above   all   of  the   papal 

court.     For  the    agitation    was   not    merely    speculative,  influence  of 

There  was  beginning  to  be  a  direct  and  rational  interest  thoushtvP°n 

0  t  the  arrange- 

in,   life,  a   power  of   applying  thought   to  practical    ends,  ments  of 

which  had  not  been  seen  before.  Man's  life  among  his  society. 
fellows  was  no  longer  a  mere  wild  beast  struggle ;  man's 
soul  no  more,  as  it  had  been,  the  victim  of  ungoverned 
passion,  whether  it  was  awed  by  supernatural  terrors  or 
captivated  by  examples  of  surpassing  holiness.  Manners 
were  still  rude,  and  governments  unsettled ;  but  society 
was  learning  to  organize  itself  upon  fixed  principles ;  to 
recognize,  however  faintly,  the  value  of  order,  industry, 
equality  ;  to  adapt  means  to  ends,  and  conceive  of  the 
common  good  as  the  proper  end  of  its  own  existence. 
In  a  word,  Politics  had  begun  to  exist,  and  with  them 
there  had  appeared  the  first  of  a  class  of  persons  whom 
friends  and  enemies  may  both,  though  with  different 
meanings,  call  ideal  politicians ;  men  who,  however  va- 
rious have  been  the  doctrines  they  have  held,  however 
impracticable  many  of  the  plans  they  have  advanced,  have 
been  nevertheless  alike  in  their  devotion  to  the  highest 
interests  of  humanity,  and  have  frequently  been  derided 
as  theorists  in  their  own  age  to  be  honoured  as  the  pro- 
phets and  teachers  of  the  next. 


256  THE   HOLY   ROMAN    EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xv.  Now  it  was  towards  the  Roman  Empire  that  the  hopes 
Separation  of  and  sympathies  of  these  political  speculators  as  well  as  of 
th'pe°tles°f  the  jurists  and  poets  of  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  cen- 

Europe  into  J 

hostile  king-  turies  were  constantly  directed.  The  cause  may  be 
doms:  const-  gathered  from  the  circumstances  of  the  time.  The  most 
9aninterna-  remarkable  event  in  the  history  of  the  last  three  hundred 
years  had  been  the  formation  of  nationalities,  each  dis- 
tinguished by  a  peculiar  language  and  character,  and  by 
steadily  increasing  differences  of  habits  and  institutions. 
And  as  upon  this  national  basis  there  had  been  in  most 
cases  established  strong  monarchies,  Europe  was  broken 
up  into  disconnected  bodies,  and  the  cherished  scheme  of 
a  united  Christian  state  appeared  less  likely  than  ever  to 
be  realized.  Nor  was  this  all.  Sometimes  through  race- 
antagonism,  more  often  by  the  jealousy  and  ambition  of 
their  sovereigns,  these  countries  were  constantly  involved 
in  war  with  one  another,  violating  on  a  larger  scale,  and 
with  scarcely  less  destructive  results  than  in  time  past, 
the  peace  of  the  religious  community ;  while  each  of  them 
was  at  the  same  time  torn  within  by  frequent  insurrections, 
and  desolated  by  long  and  bloody  civil  wars.  The  new 
nationalities  were  too  fully  formed  to  allow  the  hope  that 
by  their  extinction  a  remedy  might  be  applied  to  these 
evils.  They  had  grown  up  in  spite  of  the  Empire  and  the 
Church,  and  were  not  likely  to  yield  in  their  strength  what 
they  had  won  in  their  weakness.  But  it  still  appeared 
possible  to  soften,  if  not  to  overcome,  their  antagonism. 
What  might  not  be  looked  for  from  the  erection  of  a  pre- 
siding power  common  to  all  Europe,  a  power  which,  while 
it  should  oversee  the  internal  concerns  of  each  country, 
not  dethroning  the  king,  but  treating  him  as  an  hereditary 
viceroy,  should  be  more  especially  charged  to  prevent  strife 
"between  kingdoms,  and  to  maintain  the  public  order  of 
Europe  by  being  not  only  the  fountain  of  international 


THE   EMPIRE  AS   AN   INTERNATIONAL   POWER     257 

law,  but  also  the  judge  in  its  causes  and  the  enforcer  of  CHAP.  xv. 
its  sentences  ? 

To  such  a  position  had  the  Popes  aspired.  They  were  The  Popes  at 
indeed  excellently  fitted  for  it  by  the  respect  which  the  ini™^°nal 
sacredness  of  their  office  commanded  ;  by  their  control  of 
the  tremendous  weapons  of  excommunication  and  inter- 
dict ;  above  all,  by  their  exemption,  as  the  heads  of  an 
order  which  belonged  to  no  one  nation,  from  those  nar- 
rowing influences  of  place,  or  blood,  or  personal  interest, 
which  it  would  be  their  chiefest  duty  to  resist  in  others. 
And  there  had  been  pontiffs  whose  fearlessness  and  jus- 
tice were  worthy  of  their  exalted  office,  and  whose  inter- 
vention was  gratefully  remembered  by  those  who  found 
no  other  helpers.  Nevertheless,  judging  the  Papacy  by  its 
conduct  as  a  whole,  it  had  been  tried  and  found  wanting. 
Even  when  its  throne  stood  firmest  and  its  purposes  were 
most  pure,  one  motive  had  always  biassed  its  decisions  — 
a  partiality  to  the  most  submissive.  During  the  greater 
part  of  the  fourteenth  century  it  was  at  Avignon  the 
willing  tool  of  the  French  kings ;  in  the  pursuit  of  a  tem- 
poral principality  it  had  mingled  in  and  been  contaminated 
by  the  unhallowed  politics  of  Italy;  its  supreme  council, 
the  college  of  cardinals,  was  distracted  by  the  intrigues  of 
two  bitterly  hostile  factions.  And  while  the  power  of  the 
Popes  had  declined  steadily,  though  silently,  since  the 
days  of  Boniface  the  Eighth,  the  arrogance  of  the  great 
prelates  and  the  vices  of  the  inferior  clergy  had  provoked 
throughout  Western  Christendom  a  reaction  against  the 
pretensions  of  all  sacerdotal  authority.  As  there  is  no 
theory  at  first  sight  more  attractive  than  that  which  en- 
trusts all  government  to  a  supreme  spiritual  power,  which, 
knowing  what  is  best  for  man,  shall  lead  him  to  his  true 
good  by  appealing  to  the  highest  principles  of  his  nature, 
so  there  is  no  disappointment  more  bitter  than  that  of 


258 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  XV. 


Duties  attri- 
buted to  the 
Empire. 


those  who  find  that  the  holiest  office  may  be  polluted  by 
the  lusts  and  passions  of  its  holder ;  that  craft  and  hypoc- 
risy lead  while  fanaticism  follows ;  that  here  too,  as  in  so 
much  else,  the  corruption  of  the  best  is  worst.  Some 
such  disappointment  there  was  in  Europe  now,  and  with 
it  a  certain  disposition  to  look  with  favour  on  the  secular 
power :  a  wish  to  escape  from  the  unhealthy  atmosphere 
of  clerical  despotism  to  the  rule  of  positive  law,  harsher,  it 
might  be,  yet  surely  less  corrupting.  Espousing  the  cause 
of  the  Roman  Empire  as  the  chief  opponent  of  priestly 
claims,  this  tendency  found  it,  with  shrunken  territory 
and  diminished  resources,  fitter  in  some  respects  for  the 
office  of  an  international  judge  and  mediator  than  it  had 
been  as  a  great  national  power.  For  though  far  less 
widely  active,  it  was  losing  that  local  character  which  was 
fast  gathering  round  the  Papacy.  With  feudal  rights  no 
longer  enforcible,  and  removed,  except  in  his  patrimonial 
lands,  from  direct  contact  with  the  subject,  the  Emperor 
was  not,  as  heretofore,  conspicuously  a  German  and  a 
feudal  king,  and  occupied  an  ideal  position  less  marred  by 
the  incongruous  accidents  of  birth  and  training,  of  national 
and  dynastic  interests. 

To  that  position  three  cardinal  duties  were  attached. 
He  who  held  it  must  typify  spiritual  unity,  must  preserve 
peace,  must  be  a  fountain  of  that  by  which  alone  among 
imperfect  men  peace  is  preserved  and  restored,  law  and 
justice.  The  first  of  these  three  objects  was  sought  not 
only  on  religious  grounds,  but  also  from  that  longing  for  a 
wider  brotherhood  of  humanity  towards  which,  ever  since 
the  barrier  between  Jew  and  Gentile,  Greek  and  barbarian, 
was  broken  down,  the  aspirations  of  the  higher  minds  of 
the  world  have  been  constantly  directed.  Placed  in  the 
midst  of  Europe,  the  Emperor  was  to  bind  its  races  into 
one  body,  reminding  them  of  their  common  faith,  their 


THE  EMPIRE  AS  AN   INTERNATIONAL  POWER     259 

common  blood,  their  common  interest  in  each  other's  wel-  CHAP,  xv 
fare.  And  he  was  therefore  above  all  things,  claiming 
indeed  to  be  upon  earth  the  representative  of  the  Prince 
of  Peace,  bound  to  listen  to  complaints,  and  to  redress  the 
injuries  inflicted  by  sovereigns  or  peoples  upon  each  other; 
to  punish  offenders  against  the  public  order  of  Christen- 
dom ;  to  maintain  through  the  world,  looking  down  as  from 
a  serene  height  upon  the  schemes  and  quarrels  of  meaner 
potentates,  that  supreme  good  without  which  neither  arts 
nor  letters,  nor  the  gentler  virtues  of  life,  can  rise  and 
flourish.  The  mediaeval  Empire  was  in  its  essence  what 
its  modern  imitators  have  sometimes  professed  themselves: 
the  Empire  was  Peace :  the  oldest  and  noblest  title  of  its 
head  was  'Imperator  pacificus.' a  And  that  he  might  be 
the  peacemaker,  he  must  be  the  expounder  of  justice  and 
the  author  of  its  concrete  embodiment,  positive  law ;  chief 
legislator  and  supreme  judge  of  appeal,  like  his  predecessor 

a  The  archbishop  of  Mentz  addresses  Conrad  II  on  his  election  thus : 
'  Deus  quum  a  te  multa  requirat  turn  hoc  potissimum  desiderat  ut  facias 
iudicium  et  iustitiam  et  pacem  patriae  quae  respicit  ad  te,  ut  sis  defensor 
ecclesiarum  et  clericorum,  tutor  viduarum  et  orphanorum.'  —  Wippo,  Vita 
Chuonradi,  c.  3  (M.  G.  ff.,  Script,  xi.  p.  260).  So  Pope  Urban  IV  writes  to 
Richard :  '  Ut  Imperil  Romani  fastigium  et  eius  culmen  praesidens  specialis 
advocati  et  defensoris  praecipui  circa  ecclesiam  gerat  officium  et  .  .  .  inimicis 
consternatis  eiusdem  in  pacis  pulchritudine  sedeat  populus  Christianus  et 
requie  opulenta  quiescat.'  —  Raynald.  Ann.  Eccl.,  ad  ann.  1263. 

Compare  also  the  '  Edictum  de  crimine  laesae  maiestatis '  issued  by  Henry 
VII  in  Italy :  '  Ad  reprimenda  multorum  facinora  qui  ruptis  totius  debitae 
fidelitatis  habenis  adversus  Romanum  imperium,  in  cuius  tranquillitate  totius 
orbis  regularitas  requiescit,  hostili  animo  armati  conentur  nedum  humana, 
verum  etiam  divina  praecepta,  quibus  iubetur  quod  omnis  anima  Romanorum 
principi  sit  subiecta,  scelestissimis  facinoribus  et  rebellionibus  demoliri,'  &c. 
—  Pertz,  M.  G.  //.,  Legg.  ii.  p.  544. 

See  also  a  curious  passage  in  the  Life  of  St.  Adalbert,  describing  the  begin- 
ning of  the  reign  at  Rome  of  the  Emperor  Otto  III,  and  his  cousin  and  nomi- 
nee Pope  Gregory  V :  '  Laetantur  cum  primatibus  minores  civitatis :  cum 
afflicto  paupere  exultant  agmina  viduarum,  quia  novus  imperator  dat  iura 
populis  ;  dat  iura  novus  papa'  (M.  G.  H.,  Script,  iv.  p.  591). 


260  THE   HOLY  ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xv.  the  compiler  of  the  Corpus  luris,  the  one  and  only  source 
of  all  legitimate  authority.  In  this  sense,  as  governor 
and  administrator,  not  as  owner,  is  he,  in  the  words  of  the 
jurists,  Lord  of  the  world  b;  not  that  its  soil  belongs  to  him 
in  the  same  sense  in  which  the  soil  of  France  or  England 
belongs  to  their  respective  kings :  he  is  the  steward  of 
Him  who  has  received  the  nations  for  His  inheritance  and 
the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth  for  His  possession.  It  is, 
therefore,  by  him  alone  that  the  idea  of  pure  right,  acquired 
not  by  force  but  by  legitimate  devolution  from  those  whom 
God  Himself  had  set  up,  is  visibly  expressed  upon  earth. 
To  find  an  external  and  positive  basis  for  that  idea  is  a 
problem  which  it  has  at  all  times  been  more  easy  to  evade 
than  to  solve,  and  one  peculiarly  distressing  to  those  who 
could  neither  explain  the  phenomena  of  society  by  reduc- 
ing it  to  its  original  principles,  nor  inquire  historically 
Divine  right  how  its  existing  arrangements  had  grown  up.  Hence  the 
°fthe  attempt  to  represent  human  government  as  an  emanation 

T*  i  •    •  •  r  i  •    i         11       i  •      »i 

from  divine :  a  view  from  which  all  the  similar  but  less 
logically  consistent  doctrines  of  divine  right  that  have  pre- 
vailed in  later  times  are  borrowed. 

From  the  struggle  of  the  Investitures  onwards  there  had 
been  much  debate  as  to  the  source  of  civil  authority.  One 
theory  sought  it  in  the  Visible  Church.  Christ  had  com- 
mitted power  to  Peter :  Peter  had  transmitted  it  to  his 
successors  :  it  was  from  those  successors  that  the  Emperor 
must  obtain  it.  The  other  theory  based  itself  on  history 
and  on  law.  God's  providence  had  conferred  the  rule  of 
the  world  upon  the  Roman  people ;  and  the  Roman  people 
had  delegated  their  power  to  Augustus  and  his  successors, 
for  had  it  not  been  written,  '  Populus  ei  (sc.  Principi  Ro- 
mano) et  in  eum  omne  suum  imperium  et  protestatem 
concessit '  ? c  Nor  did  this  view  fail  to  reinforce  itself  by 

b  See  p.  194,  ante.  c  Inst.  lust.  i.  2.  6  ;  cf.  Dig.  i.  4.  I. 


THE   EMPIRE   AS   AN   INTERNATIONAL   POWER     261 

the  appeal  to  the  passages  of  Scripture  which  enjoin  obedi-  CHAP.  xv. 
ence  to  the  powers  that  be,  because  they  are  ordained  of 
God.d  Some  thinkers  conceived  the  delegation  by  the 
people  to  the  Emperor  to  have  been  final  and  irrevocable. 
Some  held  it  compatible  with  a  fresh  action  by  the  people, 
and  pointed  out  that  when  the  Empire  was  transferred 
from  the  Easterns  to  the  Franks  by  the  election  of  Charles 
the  Great,  Rome  (or  the  West  generally)  had  resumed  its 
ancient  rights,  and  the  Pope  did  no  more  than  act  as  the 
spokesman  of  the  people.  Some,  again,  went  so  far  as  to 
argue  that  an  Emperor  who  palpably  transgressed  the  Law 
of  Nature  —  it  was  agreed  that  both  Emperor  and  Pope 
were  subject  to  the  Law  of  Nature,  which  was  practically 
the  Law  of  God  —  might  be  deposed  by  his  subjects.  An 
avowed  heretic,  for  instance,  could  not  demand  obedience ; 
indeed,  an  heretical  or,  let  us  say,  anti-Christian  Emperor 
like  Julian  would  be  a  contradiction  in  terms.  It  was  even 
held  by  some  that  not  only  the  right  of  election,  but  also 
supreme  legislative  power,  remained  always  in  the  people, 
though  no  one  could  say  how  the  people  were  to  exercise 
it,  for  there  were  no  organs  for  popular  legislation.  A  fur- 
ther and  indeed  an  insoluble  question  was  :  Who  were  the 
people  ?  The  followers  of  Arnold  of  Brescia  saw  in  the 
inhabitants  of  Rome  the  same populus  Romanus  which  had 
of  old  exerted  universal  dominion.  But  such  a  claim  was 
too  bold  even  for  the  Middle  Ages,  and  the  better  accepted 
view  understood  by  '  the  people  '  either  the  whole  of  the 
Emperor's  actual  subjects  (totus  popuhis  imperio  Romano 
subiectus e),  or  all  Christians,  or  mankind  as  a  whole/ 

d  See  esp.  Romans  xiii.  1-5  ;    I  Peter  ii.  13-15. 

•  Lupold  of  Bebenburg,  De  lure  Regni  et  Imperil  Romani,  cc.  12  and  17; 
and  so  William  of  Ockham,  Octo  Quaestiones. 

f  Cf.  Ockham,  Octo  Quaestiones  (quoted  by  Gierke,  lohannes  Althusius), 
p.  85,  note  30. 


262  THE    HOLY   ROMAN    EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xv.  i.e.  all  nations,  acting,  as  Ockham  suggests,  by  a  majority. 
Widely  as  opinions  differed  upon  these  matters  there  was 
on  two  points  a  general  agreement.  Power  originally  be- 
longed to  the  people,  and  was  conferred  by  them  upon  the 
Emperor.  Even  St.  Thomas  of  Aquinum  recognizes  this, 
though  some  later  writers  held  that  Christ  when  He  came 
took  all  power  to  Himself  and  bestowed  it  upon  Peter. 
This  doctrine  of  popular  sovereignty,  partly  founded  on 
the  Politics  of  Aristotle,  embodied  ideas  that  belonged  to 
Greek  republican  theory  as  well  as  traditions  that  had 
descended  from  Roman  republican  law.  It  contained,  in 
germ,8  the  principles  of  the  English,  American,  and 
French  revolutions  :  it  is  one  of  the  most  curious  links 
between  the  ancient  and  the  modern  world.  The  other 
point  touched  the  nature  of  the  power  which  the  Emperor 
exercised.  Being  exercised  under  direct  responsibility  to 
God  that  power  came  from  God,  though  it  had  come  through 
the  gift  of  the  people.  It  was  all  the  more  conformable  to 
divine  and  natural  law  because  it  did  not  pass  by  descent, 
but  was  conferred  by  electors  who,  like  the  cardinals  when 
choosing  a  Pope,  were  only  instruments  in  the  hand  of 
God,  their  function  having  been  entrusted  to  them  by  God 
and  the  people.11  Being  thus  derived  from  the  Law  of 
God  and  of  Nature,  the  rights  of  the  Emperor  are  eternal 

8  See  on  this  subject  Gierke,  ut  supra,  chap.  iii. 

h  '  Populus  Romanus  habet  potestatem  eligendi  imperatorem  per  ipsum  ius 
divinum  et  naturale  .  .  .  unde  electores  qui  communi  consensu  omnium 
Alemannorum  et  aliorunvqui  imperatori  subiecti  erant  tempore  Henrici  II 
constituti  sunt,  radicalem  vim  habent  ab  ipso  omnium  consensu,  qui  sibi  natu- 
rali  iure  imperatorem  constituere  poterant.'  —  Nicholas  of  Cues  (afterwards 
Cardinal),  De  Concordantia  Catholica,  iii.  c.  4,  ap.  Schard.  Syntagma,  p.  360. 
The  views  of  the  anti-Papal  writers  in  and  after  the  time  of  Lewis  IV  are 
usually  tinged  by  their  wish  to  find  a  remedy  for  the  evils  of  papal  autocracy 
in  a  General  Council  which  it  would  be  the  function  of  the  Emperor  to 
convoke.  Their  eyes  are  fixed  quite  as  much  on  the  needs  of  the  Church 
herself  as  on  the  constitutional  rights  of  the  Empire  against  the  Papacy. 


THE   EMPIRE   AS   AN   INTERNATIONAL   POWER      263 

and  imprescriptible.  They  exist  irrespective  of  their  actual  CHAP.  xv. 
exercise,  and  no  voluntary  abandonment,  not  even  an  ex- 
press grant,  can  impair  them.  Pope  Boniface  the  Eighth l 
reminds  the  king  of  France,  and  imperialist  lawyers  till  the 
seventeenth  century  repeated  the  claim,  that  he,  like  other 
princes,  is  of  right  and  must  ever  remain  subject  to  the 
Roman  Emperor.  And  the  sovereigns  of  Europe  long 
continued  to  address  the  Emperor  in  language,  and  yield 
to  him  a  precedence,  which  admitted  the  inferiority  of  their 
own  position.3 

It  is  easy  to  see  how  it  was  to  the  Roman  Emperor,  and  Roman  Em 
to  him  only,  that  the  international  duties  and  privileges  f 
above  mentioned  could  be  attributed.     Being  Roman,  he  power. 
was  of  no  nation,  and  therefore  fittest  to  judge  between 
contending  states,  and  appease  the   animosities   of  race. 
His  was  the  imperial  tongue  of  Rome,  not  only  the  vehicle 
of  religion  and  law,  but  also,  since  no  other  was  understood 
everywhere  in  Europe,  the  necessary  medium  of  diplomatic 

1 '  Vicarius  lesu  Christi  et  successor  Petri  transtulit  potestatem  imperil  a 
Graecis  in  Germanos  ut  ipsi  German!  .  .  .  possint  eligere  regem  Romanorum 
qui  est  promovendus  in  Imperatorem  et  monarcham  omnium  regum  et  prin- 
cipum  terrenorum.  Nee  insurgat  superbia  Gallicorum  quae  dicat  quod  non 
recognoscit  superiorem :  mentiuntur,  quia  de  iure  sunt  et  esse  debent  sub 
rege  Romanorum  et  Imperatore.' — Speech  of  Boniface  VIII,  April  30,  1303 
(Pfeffinger,  Corp.  iur.  publ.  i.  377).  It  is  curious  to  compare  with  this  the 
words  addressed  nearly  five  centuries  earlier  by  Pope  John  VIII  to  Lewis, 
king  of  Bavaria :  '  Si  sumpseritis  Romanum  imperium,  omnia  regna  vobis 
subiecta  existent.'  —  Jaffe,  Reg.  Pont.  p.  281. 

J  So  Alfonso,  king  of  Naples,  writes  to  Frederick  III :  '  Nos  reges  omnes 
debemus  reverentiam  Imperatori,  tanquam  summo  regi,  qui  est  Caput  et 
Dux  regum.' — Quoted  by  Pfeffinger,  i.  379.  And  Francis  I  (of  France), 
speaking  of  a  proposed  combined  expedition  against  the  Turks,  says, '  Caesari 
nihilominus  principem  ea  in  expeditione  locum  non  gravarer  ex  officio  cedere.' 
—  Marquard  Freher,  Script,  rer.  Germ.  iii.  425.  For  a  long  time  no  Euro- 
pean sovereign  save  the  Emperor  ventured  to  use  the  title  of  '  Majesty.'  The 
imperial  chancery  conceded  it  in  1633  to  the  kings  of  England  and  Sweden; 
in  1641  to  the  king  of  France.  Zedler,  Universal  Lexicon,  s.  v.  Majestat. 


264  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

intercourse.  As  there  was  no  Church  but  the  Holy  Roman 
Church,  and  he  its  temporal  head,  it  was  by  him  that  the 
communion  of  the  saints  in  its  outward  form  and  on  its 
secular  side  was  represented,  and  to  his  keeping  that  the 
sanctity  of  peace  must  be  entrusted.  As  direct  heir  of 
those  who  from  Julius  to  Justinian  had  shaped  the  legal 
principles  generally  recognized  through  Europe, k  he 
was,  so  to  speak,  legality  personified  (animata  lex  in 
terris) ;  the  only  sovereign  on  earth  who,  being  possessed 
of  power  by  an  unimpeachable  title,  could  by  his  grant 
confer  upon  others  rights  equally  valid.  And  as  he  claimed 
to  perpetuate  the  greatest  political  system  the  world  had 
known,  a  system  which  still  moves  the  wonder  of  those 
who  see  before  their  eyes  empires  as  much  wider  than  the 
Roman  as  they  are  less  symmetrical,  and  whose  vast  and 
complex  machinery  far  surpassed  anything  the  fourteenth 
century  possessed  or  could  hope  to  establish,  it  was  not 
strange  that  he  and  his  government  (assuming  them  to 
receive  the  obedience  to  which  they  were  entitled)  should 
be  taken  as  the  ideal  of  a  perfect  monarch  and  a  perfect 
state. 

There  was  in  this  theory  nothing  that  was  absurd, 
though  much  that  was  impracticable.  The  ideas  on  which 
it  rested  are  still  unapproached  in  grandeur  and  simplicity, 
still  as  far  in  advance  of  the  average  thought  of  Europe, 
and  as  unlikely  to  find  men  or  nations  fit  to  apply  them, 
as  when  they  were  promulgated  five  hundred  years  ago. 
The  practical  evil  which  the  establishment  of  such  a 
universal  monarchy  was  intended  to  meet,  that  of  wars 
and  hardly  less  ruinous  preparations  for  war  between  the 
states  of  Europe,  remains  what  it  was  then.  The  remedy 

k  With  the  progress  of  society  and  the  growth  of  commerce  the  local 
customs  were,  through  the  greater  part  of  Western  and  Central  Europe, 
beginning  either  to  give  way  to  or  to  be  remodelled  and  supplemented  by 
the  Civil  Law. 


THE   EMPIRE   AS   AN   INTERNATIONAL   POWER     265 

which    mediaeval    theory    proposed    has    been    in   some  CHAP.  xv. 
measure  applied  by  the  construction  and  reception  of  the 
rules  we  call   international  law ;  the  greater  difficulty  of 
erecting  a  tribunal  which   can  decide  with  the  power  of 
enforcing  its  decisions,  remains  unsolved.1 

Of  the  many  applications  and  illustrations  of  these  illustrations. 
doctrines  which  mediaeval  documents  furnish,  it  will 
suffice  to  adduce  two  or  three.  No  imperial  privilege  was  Right  of 
prized  more  highly  than  the  power  of  creating  kings,  for  creahns 
there  was  none  which  raised  the  Emperor  so  much  above  the 
rulers  of  the  various  nations.  In  this,  as  in  other  interna- 
tional concerns,  the  Pope  soon  began  to  claim  a  jurisdiction, 
at  first  concurrent,  then  separate  and  independent.  But 
the  older  and  more  consistent  view  assigned  it,  as  flowing 
from  the  possession  of  supreme  secular  authority,  to  the 
Emperor  ;  and  it  was  from  him  that  the  rulers  of  Burgundy, 
Bohemia,  Hungary,  apparently  Poland  also,  received  the 
regal  title. m  The  prerogative  was  his  in  the  same  manner 
in  which  that  of  conferring  titles  is  still  held  to  belong  to 
the  sovereign  in  every  modern  kingdom.  And  so  when 
Charles  the  Bold,  last  duke  of  French  Burgundy,  proposed 

1  The  recently  created  Hague  Tribunal  can  render  decisions  in  cases  sub- 
mitted to  it,  but  cannot  enforce  its  judgements. 

m  Thus  we  are  told  of  the  Emperor  Charles  the  Bald,  that  he  confirmed  the 
election  of  Boso,  king  of  Burgundy  and  Provence,  '  Dedit  Bosoni  Provinciam 
(sc.  Carol  us  Calvus),  et  corona  in  vertice  capitis  imposita,  eum  regem  appel- 
lari  iussit,  ut  more  priscorum  imperatorum  regibus  videretur  dominari.'  — 
Regin.  Chron.,  ad  ann.  877  {M.  G.  ff.,  Script,  i.  p.  589).  This  statement  is 
in  fact  incorrect,  but  it  evidences  the  views  of  the  time.  Frederick  II  made 
his  son  Enzio  (that  famous  Enzio  whose  romantic  history  every  one  who  has 
seen  Bologna  will  remember)  king  of  Sardinia,  and  also  erected  the  duchy 
of  Austria  into  a  kingdom,  although  for  some  reason  the  title  seems  never 
to  have  been  used;  and  Lewis  IV  gave  to  Humbert  of  Dauphine  the  title 
of  king  of  Vienne,  A.D.  1336.  Otto  III  is  said  to  have  conferred  the  title 
of  king  on  Boleslas  of  Poland,  and  when  the  Elector  Frederick  of  Branden- 
burg sought  to  make  himself  king  of  Prussia  in  A.D.  1 700,  he  was  obliged  to 
obtain  the  Emperor's  consent. 


266 


THE    HOLY   ROMAN    EMPIRE 


CHAP.  xv.  to  turn  his  wide  and  populous  dominions  into  a  kingdom, 
it  was  from  Frederick  III  that  he  sought  permission  to  do 
so.  The  Emperor,  however,  was  greedy  and  suspicious,  the 
duke  uncompliant ;  and  when  Frederick  found  that  terms 
could  not  be  arranged  between  them,  he  stole  away  sud- 
denly, and  left  Charles  to  carry  back,  with  ill-concealed 
mortification,  the  crown  and  sceptre  which  he  had  brought 
ready-made  to  the  place  of  interview.11 

Chivalry.  In  the  same  manner,  as  representing  what  was  common 

to  and  valid  throughout  all  Europe,  nobility,  and  more 
particularly  knighthood,  centred  in  the  Empire.  The 
great  Orders  of  Chivalry  were  international  institutions, 
whose  members,  having  consecrated  themselves  a  military 
priesthood,  had  no  longer  any  country  of  their  own,  and 
could  therefore  be  subject  to  no  one  save  the  Emperor  and 
the  Pope.  For  knighthood  was  constructed  on  the  analogy 
of  priesthood,  and  knights  were  conceived  as  being  to  the 
world  in  its  secular  aspect  exactly  what  priests,  and  more 
especially  the  monastic  orders,  were  to  it  in  its  religious  as- 
pect :  to  the  one  body  was  given  the  sword  of  the  flesh,  to 
the  other  the  sword  of  the  spirit ;  each  was  universal,  each 
had  its  autocratic  head.0  Singularly,  too,  were  these 

n  The  duke  of  Lithuania  is  said  to  have  treated  with  Sigismund  for  the 
bestowal  on  him  of  the  title  of  king.  —  Cf.  Pfeffinger,  Corp.  lur.  Publ.  i.  424. 

Henry  VIII  of  England  when  he  rebelled  against  the  Pope  called  himself 
king  of  Ireland  (his  predecessors  had  used  only  the  title  '  Dominus  Hiber- 
niae')  without  asking  the  Emperor's  permission,  in  order  to  shew  that  he 
repudiated  the  temporal  as  well  as  the  spiritual  dominion  of  Rome.  The 
Act  24  Hen.  VIII,  cap.  12  (Statute  of  Appeals)  is  said  to  be  designed  'to 
keep  the  imperiall  crown  of  this  realm  from  the  anoyaunce  as  well  of  the  See 
of  Rome  as  from  the  auctoritie  of  other  foreyne  potentates  attempting  the 
diminution  or  violacion  thereof.'  These  '  other  foreyne  potentates '  are  prob- 
ably the  Emperors. 

0  It  is  probably  for  this  reason  that  the  Ordo  Romanus  directs  the  Em- 
peror and  Empress  to  be  crowned  (in  St.  Peter's)  at  the  altar  of  St.  Maurice, 
the  patron  saint  of  knighthood. 


THE   EMPIRE   AS   AN   INTERNATIONAL   POWER      267 

notions   brought   into    harmony   with    the    feudal    polity.   CHAP.  xv. 
Caesar   was    lord  paramount  of   the  world  :  its  countries 
great    fiefs,    whose  kings    were  his   tenants  in  chief,  the 
suitors  of  his  court,  owing  to  him  homage,  fealty,  and  mili- 
tary service  against  the  infidel. 

One  illustration  more  of  the  way  in  which  the  Empire 
was  held  to  be  something  of  and  for  all  mankind  cannot 
be  omitted.  Although  from  the  practical  union  of  the 
imperial  with  the  German  throne  none  but  Germans  were 
latterly  chosen  to  fill  it,p  it  remained  in  point  of  law 
absolutely  free  from  all  restrictions  of  country  or  birth. 
In  an  age  of  the  most  intense  aristocratic  exclusiveness,  Persons 
the  highest  office  in  the  world  was  the  only  secular  one  elisibleas 

;'.'*-,  Emperors. 

open  to  all  Christians.  The  old  writers,  after  debating  at 
length  the  qualifications  that  are  or  may  be  desirable  in 
an  Emperor,  and  relating  how  in  pagan  times  Gauls  and 
Spaniards,  Moors  and  Pannonians,  were  thought  worthy 
of  the  purple,  decide  that  two  things,  and  no  more,  are 
required  of  the  candidate  for  Empire :  he  must  be  free- 
born,  and  he  must  be  orthodox.q 

It  is  not  altogether  easy  to  estimate  the  respective  in-   The  Empire 
fluence  exerted  by  each  of  the  three  revivals  which  I  have  a^dthe  New 

J  Learning. 

attempted  to  distinguish.     The  spirit  of  the  ancient  world 

P  See  especially  Gerlach  Buxtorff,  Dissertatio  ad  Auream  Bullam ;  and 
Augustinus  Stenchus,  De  Imperio  Romano;  quoted  by  Marquard  Frehcr. 
It  was  keenly  debated,  while  Charles  V  and  Francis  I  (of  France)  were  rival 
candidates,  whether  any  one  but  a  German  was  eligible.  By  birth  Charles 
was  either  a  Spaniard  or  a  Fleming;  but  this  difficulty  his  partisans  avoided 
by  holding  that  he  had  beens  according  to  the  civil  law,  in  potestate  of  Maxi- 
milian his  grandfather.  However,  to  say  nothing  of  the  Guidos  and  Beren- 
gars  of  earlier  days,  the  examples  of  Richard  and  Alfonso  are  conclusive  as  to 
the  eligibility  of  others  than  Germans.  Edward  III  of  England  was,  as  has 
been  said,  actually  elected;  Henry  VIII  of  England  was  a  candidate.  And 
attempts  were  frequently  made  to  elect  the  kings  of  France.  —  Cf.  Pfeffinger, 
Vitriarius  illustratus,  pp.  69  sqq. 

<i  See  Note  XV  at  end. 


268  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xv.  by  which  the  men  who  led  these  movements  fancied  them- 
selves animated,  was  in  truth  a  pagan,  or  at  least  a  strongly 
secular  spirit,  in  many  respects  inconsistent  with  the  asso- 
ciations which  had  now  gathered  round  the  imperial  office. 
And  this  hostility  did  not  fail  to  shew  itself  when  at  the 
beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century,  in  the  fulness  of  the 
Renaissance,  a  direct  and  for  the  time  irresistible  sway 
was  exercised  by  the  art  and  literature  of  Greece,  when 
the  mythology  of  Euripides  and  Ovid  supplanted  that 
which  had  fired  the  imagination  of  Dante  and  peopled  the 
visions  of  St.  Francis ;  when  men  forsook  the  image  of 
the  saint  in  the  cathedral  for  the  statue  of  the  nymph  in 
the  garden ;  when  the  uncouth  jargon  of  scholastic  theol- 
ogy was  equally  distasteful  to  the  scholars  who  formed 
their  style  upon  Cicero  and  to  the  philosophers  who  drew 
their  inspiration  from  Plato.  That  meanwhile  the  admirers 
of  antiquity  did  ally  themselves  with  the  defenders  of  the 
Empire,  was  due  partly  indeed  to  the  false  notions  that 
were  entertained  regarding  the  early  Caesars,  yet  still  more 
to  the  common  hostility  of  both  schools  to  the  Papacy.  It 
was  as  successor  of  Old  Rome,  and  by  virtue  of  her  tradi- 
tions, that  the  Holy  See  had  established  so  wide  a  domin- 
ion ;  yet  no  sooner  did  Arnold  of  Brescia  and  his  followers 
begin  to  claim  liberty  in  the  name  of  the  ancient  consti- 
tution of  the  Roman  city,  than  they  found  in  the  Popes 
their  bitterest  foes,  and  turned  for  help  to  the  secular 
monarch  against  the  clergy.  With  similar  aversion  did 
the  Papal  Curia  view  the  revived  study  of  the  ancient 
jurisprudence,  so  soon  as  it  became,  in  the  hands  of  the 
school  of  Bologna  and  afterwards  of  the  jurists  of  France, 
a  power  able  to  assert  its  independence  and  resist  ecclesi- 
astical pretensions.  In  the  ninth  century,  Pope  Nicholas 
the  First  had  himself  judged  in  the  famous  case  of 
Teutberga,  wife  of  Lothar,  according  to  the  civil  law:  in 


THE   EMPIRE   AS   AN   INTERNATIONAL  POWER     269 

the  thirteenth,  his  successors  r  forbade  its  study,  and  the  CHAP.  xv. 

canonists  strove  to  expel    it  from    Europe.8     And  as  the 

current  of  educated  opinion  among  the   laity  was  begin- 

ning, however  imperceptibly  at  first,  to  set  against  sacer- 

dotal  tyranny,  it   followed   that   the   Empire  would   find 

sympathy  in  any  effort  it  could    make  to  regain  its  lost 

position.      Thus    the    Emperors   became,  or  might    have 

become  had   they  seen  the  greatness  of  the  opportunity 

and  been  strong  enough  to  improve  it,  the  exponents  and 

guides  of  the  political  movement,  the  pioneers,  in  secular 

matters  at    least,  of   the    Reformation.      But  the  revival 

came  too   late  to  arrest,  if   not  to  adorn,  the   decline  of 

their  office.     The  growth  of  a  national  sentiment  in  the 

several  countries  of  Europe,  which  had  already  gone  too 

far  to  be  arrested,  and  was  urged  on  by  forces  far  stronger 

than  the  theories  of  Catholic  unity  which  opposed  it,  im- 

printed on  the  resistance  to  papal  usurpation,  and  even  on 

the  instincts  of  political  freedom,  that  form  of  narrowly 

local  patriotism  which  they  long  retained  and  have  not  yet 

wholly  lost.     It  can  hardly  be  said  that  upon  any  occasion,    The  doctrine 

except   the   gathering   of   the  Council   of   Constance   by  °p^s^hts 

Sigismund,  did  the  Emperor  appear  filling  a  truly  inter-  and/unctions 


national   place.     For  the   most   part   he   exerted   in   the  ^ner  carried. 

,     n  1-1  i  i  r    out  in  fact. 

politics  of  Europe  an  influence  little  greater  than  that  of 
other  princes.  In  actual  resources  he  stood  below  the 
kings  of  France  and  England,  far  below  his  vassals  the 
Visconti  of  Milan.*  Yet  this  helplessness,  such  was  men's 

r  Honorius  II  in  1229  forbade  it  to  be  studied  or  taught  in  the  University 
of  Paris.  Innocent  IV  published  some  years  later  a  still  more  sweeping  pro- 
hibition. 

•  See  Savigny,  Gcschichte  des  romischen  Rechts  im  Mittelalter,  vol.  iii.  pp. 

Si,  341-347- 

*  Gian  Galeazzo  Visconti  overcame  Rupert  in  1401.     Charles  the  Bold  of 
Burgundy  was  a  potentate  incomparably  stronger  than  the  Emperor  Fred- 
erick III  from  whom  he  sought  the  regal  title. 


270 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


faith  or  their  timidity,  and  such  their  unwillingness  to 
make  prejudice  bend  to  facts,  did  not  prevent  his  dignity 
from  being  extolled  in  the  most  sonorous  language  by 
writers  whose  imaginations  were  enthralled  by  the  halo 
of  traditional  glory  which  surrounded  him. 

We  are  thus  brought  back  to  ask,  What  was  the  con- 
nection between  imperialism  and  the  literary  revival  ? 

To  moderns  who  think  of  the  Roman  Empire  as  the 
heathen  persecuting  power,  it  is  strange  to  find  it  depicted 
as  the  model  of  a  Christian  commonwealth.  It  may  seem 
stranger  still  that  the  study  of  antiquity  should  have  made 
men  advocates  of  arbitrary  power.  Democratic  Athens, 
oligarchic  Rome,  suggest  to  us  Pericles  and  Brutus :  the 
moderns  who  have  striven  to  apply  the  spirit  of  antiquity 
to  politics  have  been  men  like  Algernon  Sidney,  and 
Vergniaud,  and  Shelley.  The  explanation  is  the  same  in 
both  cases.u  The  ancient  world  was  known  to  the  earlier 
Middle  Ages  by  tradition,  freshest  for  what  was  latest,  and 
by  the  authors  of  the  old  Empire.  Both  presented  to 
them  the  picture  of  a  mighty  despotism  and  a  civilization 
brilliant  far  beyond  their  own.  Writings  of  the  fourth 
and  fifth  centuries,  unfamiliar  to  us,  were  to  them  author- 
ities as  high  as  Livy  or  Tacitus ;  yet  Virgil  and  Horace 
too  had  sung  the  praises  of  the  first  and  wisest  of  the 
Emperors.  To  the  enthusiasts  of  poetry  and  law,  Rome 
meant  universal  monarchy  ; x  to  those  of  religion,  her  name 
called  up  the  undimmed  radiance  of  the  Church  under 
Sylvester  and  Constantine.  Petrarch,  the  apostle  of  the 
dawning  Renaissance,  is  excited  by  the  least  attempt  to 
revive  even  the  shadow  of  imperial  greatness  :  as  he  had 
hailed  Cola  di  Rienzo,  he  welcomes  Charles  IV  into  Italy, 
and  execrates  his  departure.  The  following  passage  is 

u  Cf.  Sismondi,  Repiibliques  italiennes,  iv.  chap,  xxvii. 
*  AS  to  Justinian,  see  Dante,  Paradise,  canto  vi. 


THE   EMPIRE   AS   AN   INTERNATIONAL   POWER     271 

taken  from  his  letter  to  the  Roman  people  asking  them  to  CHAP.  xv. 
receive  back  Rienzo  :  — '  When  was  there  ever  such  peace, 
such  tranquillity,  such  justice,  such  honour  paid  to  virtue, 
such  rewards  distributed  to  the  good  and  punishments  to 
the  bad,  when  was  ever  the  state  so  wisely  guided,  as  in 
the  time  when  the  world  had  obtained  one  head,  and  that 
head  Rome ;  the  very  time  wherein  God  deigned  to  be 
born  of  a  virgin  and  dwell  upon  earth.  To  every  single 
body  there  has  been  given  a  head ;  the  whole  world  there- 
fore also,  which  is  called  by  the  poet  a  great  body,  ought 
to  be  content  with  one  temporal  head.  For  every  two- 
headed  animal  is  monstrous ;  how  much  more  horrible  and 
hideous  a  portent  must  be  a  creature  with  a  thousand  dif- 
ferent heads,  biting  and  fighting  against  one  another  !  If, 
however,  it  is  necessary  that  there  be  more  heads  than  one, 
it  is  nevertheless  evident  that  there  ought  to  be  one  to 
restrain  all  and  preside  over  all,  that  so  the  peace  of  the 
whole  body  may  abide  unshaken.  Assuredly  both  in 
heaven  and  in  earth  the  sovereignty  of  one  has  always 
been  best.' 

His  passion  for  the  heroism  of  Roman  conquest  and  the  Dante. 
ordered  peace  to  which  it  brought  the  world,  is  the  centre 
of  Dante's  political  hopes  :  he  is  no  more  a  Ghibeline 
embittered  by  exile,  but  a  patriot  whose  fervid  imagina- 
tion sees  a  nation  arise  regenerate  at  the  touch  of  its 
rightful  lord.  Italy,  the  spoil  of  so  many  Teutonic  con- 
querors, is  the  garden  of  the  Empire  which  Henry  is  to 
redeem :  Rome  the  mourning  widow,  whom  Albert  is  de- 
nounced for  neglecting.7  Passing  through  Purgatory,  the 
poet  sees  Rudolf  of  Hapsburg  seated  gloomily  apart,  mourn- 

y  '  Vieni  a  veder  la  tua  Roma,  che  piagne 
Vedova,  sola,  e  di  e  notte  chiama : 
"Cesare  mio,  perche  non  m'  accompagne?"' 

Purgatorio,  canto  vi.  112. 


2/2 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


ing  his  sin  in  that  he  left  unhealed  the  wounds  of  Italy.1 
In  the  deepest  pit  of  Hell's  ninth  circle  lies  Lucifer,  huge, 
three-headed ;  in  each  mouth  a  sinner  whom  he  crunches 
between  his  teeth,  in  one  mouth  Iscariot  the  traitor  to 
Christ,  in  the  others  the  two  traitors  to  the  first  Emperor  of 
Rome,  Brutus  and  Cassius.a  To  multiply  illustrations  from 
other  parts  of  the  poem  would  be  an  endless  task ;  for  the 
idea  is  ever  present  in  Dante's  mind,  and  displays  itself  in  a 
hundred  unexpected  forms. b  Virgil  himself  is  selected  to 
be  the  guide  of  the  pilgrim  through  hell  and  Purgatory, 
not  so  much  as  being  the  great  poet  of  antiquity,  as  be- 
cause he  'was  born  under  Julius  and  lived  beneath  the 
good  Augustus,'  because  he  was  divinely  charged  to  sing 
of  the  Empire's  earliest  and  brightest  glories.  Strange, 
that  the  shame  of  one  age  should  be  the  glory  of  another. 
For  Virgil's  melancholy  panegyrics  upon  the  destroyer  of 
the  republic  are  no  more  like  Dante's  appeals  to  the 
coming  saviour  of  Italy  than  is  Caesar  Octavianus  to 
Henry  count  of  Luxemburg. 

The  visionary  zeal  of  the  man  of  letters  was  seconded 
by  the  more  sober  devotion  of  the  lawyer.  Conqueror, 
theologian,  and  jurist,  Justinian  is  a  hero  greater  than 
either  Julius  or  Constantine,  for  his  enduring  work  bears 
him  witness.  Absolutism  was  the  civilian's  creed:0  the 
phrases  '  legibus  solutus,'  '  lex  regia,'  whatever  else  tended 
in  the  same  direction,  were  taken  to  express  the  preroga- 
tive of  him  whose  official  style  of  Augustus,  as  well  as  the 
vernacular  name  of  '  Kaiser,'  designated  the  legitimate 

z  Purgatorio,  canto  vii.  94.  a  Inferno,  canto  xxxiv.  52. 

b  See  especially  the  long  passage  on  the  Roman  Eagle  in  Par  ad.  xviii,  xix, 
and  xx. 

c  Not  that  the  doctors  of  the  civil  law  were  necessarily  political  partisans 
of  the  Emperors.  Savigny  says  that  there  were  on  the  contrary  more  Guelfs 
than  Ghibelines  among  the  jurists  of  Bologna. —  Geschichte  des  rom.  Rechts  im 
Mittelalter,  vol.  iii.  p.  80. 


THE   EMPIRE   AS   AN   INTERNATIONAL  POWER      273 

successor  of  the  compiler  of  the  Corpus  luris.     Since  it  CHAP.  xv. 
was  upon  this  legitimacy  that  his  claim  to  be  the  fountain 
of   law   rested,    no   pains    were    spared   to  seek   out   and 
observe  every  custom  and  precedent  by  which  Old  Rome 
seemed  to  be  connected  with  her  representative. 

Of  the  many  instances  that  might  be  collected,  it  would  imitations  oj 
be  tedious  to  enumerate  more  than  a  few.  The  offices  oldRome- 
of  the  imperial  household,  instituted  by  Constantine  the 
Great,  were  attached  to  the  noblest  families  of  Germany. 
The  Emperor  and  Empress,  before  their  coronation  at 
Rome,  were  lodged  in  the  chambers  called  those  of 
Augustus  and  Livia;d  a  bare  sword  was  borne  before 
them  by  the  praetorian  prefect ;  their  processions  were 
adorned  by  the  standards  —  eagles,  wolves,  and  dragons, 
which  had  figured  in  the  train  of  Hadrian  or  Theodosius.6 
The  constant  title  of  the  Emperor  himself,  according  to 
the  style  introduced  by  Probus,  was  '  semper  Augustus,' 
or '  perpetuus  Augustus,'  which  erring  etymology  translated 
'  at  all  times  increaser  of  the  Empire.' f  Edicts  issued  by 
a  Franconian  or  Swabian  sovereign  were  inserted  as 
Novels g  in  the  Corpus  luris,  in  the  latest  editions  of 
which  custom  still  allows  them  a  place.  The  pontificatus 
maximus  of  his  pagan  predecessors  was  supposed  to  be 
preserved  by  the  admission  of  each  Emperor  as  a  canon 
of  St.  Peter's  at  Rome  and  St.  Mary's  at  Aachen.h  Some- 

d  Cf.  Palgrave,  Normandy  and  England,  vol.  ii  (of  Otto  and  Adelheid). 
The  Ordo  Romanus  talks  of  a  '  Camera  luliae '  in  the  Lateran  palace,  reserved 
for  the  Empress. 

e  See  notes  to  Chron,  Casin.  in  Muratori,  S.  R.  I.  iv.  515. 

f '  Zu  aller  Zeiten  Mehrer  des  Reichs.' 

8  Novellae  Constitutiones. 

h  Marquard  Freher,  Scr.  Rer.  Germ.  iii.  The  question  whether  the  seven 
electors  vote  as  singuli  or  as  a  collegium,  is  solved  by  shewing  that  they  have 
stepped  into  the  place  of  the  senate  and  people  of  Rome,  whose  duty  it  was 
to  choose  the  Emperor,  though  (it  is  naively  added)  the  soldiers  sometimes 
usurped  it.  —  Peter  de  Andlau,  De  Imperio  Romano. 
T 


274  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xv.  times  we  even  find  him  talking  of  his  consulship.1  Annal- 
ists usually  number  the  place  of  each  sovereign  from 
Augustus  downwards.j  The  notion  of  an  uninterrupted 
succession,  which  moves  the  stranger's  wondering  smile 
as  he  sees  ranged  round  the  magnificent  Golden  Hall  of 
Augsburg  the  portraits  of  the  Caesars,  laurelled,  helmeted, 
and  periwigged,  from  Julius  the  conqueror  of  Gaul  to 
Joseph  the  partitioner  of  Poland,  was  to  those  genera- 
tions not  an  article  of  faith  only  because  its  denial  was 
inconceivable. 

Reverence  for       And  all  this  historical  antiquarianism,  as  one  might  call 
andent forms  ^  which  gathers  round  the  Empire,  is  but  one  instance, 

and  phrases         •,-,•,  ••,  •  r      i  •    i  T 

in  the  Middle  though  the  most  striking,  of  that  eager  wish  to  cling  to 
Ages.  the  old  forms,  use  the  old  phrases,  and  preserve  the  old 

institutions  to  which  the  annals  of  mediaeval  Europe  bear 
witness.  It  appears  even  in  trivial  expressions,  as  when 
a  monkish  chronicler  says  of  evil  bishops  deposed,  Tribu 
moti  sunt,  or  talks  of  the  'senate  and  people  of  the 
Franks,'  when  he  means  a  council  of  chiefs  surrounded 
by  a  crowd  of  half-naked  warriors.  A  certain  continuity 
of  institutions  there  had  really  been.  One  may  say,  for 
instance,  that  the  mediaeval  trade-guilds,  though  often 
traceable  to  a  different  source,  represented  the  old 
collegia,  and  that  villenage  was  not  unconnected  with  the 
system  of  coloni  under  the  later  Empire.  But  the  men 
of  the  Middle  Ages  were  not  thinking  of  such  cases  when 
they  reproduced  the  old  phrases  in  drawing  up  edicts 
and  charters  on  Roman  precedents.  They  imitated  for 

1  Thus  Charles,  in  a  capitulary  added  to  a  revised  edition  of  the  Lombard 
law  issued  in  A.D.  801,  says,  'Anno  consulatus  nostri  primo.'  —  M.  G.ff.,Legg. 
i.  p.  83.  So  Otto  III  calls  himself '  Consul  Senatus  populique  Romani.' 

3  Francis  II,  the  last  Emperor,  was  one  hundred  and  twentieth  (or  one 
hundred  and  twenty-second)  from  Augustus.  Some  chroniclers  call  Otto  the 
Great  Otto  II,  counting  in  Salvius  Otho,  the  successor  of  Galba. 


THE   EMPIRE   AS   AN   INTERNATIONAL   POWER     2/5 

the  love  of  imitating,  and  liked  to  fancy  themselves  to  be  CHAP,  xv 
the  heirs  of  an  old  order  which  had  never  quite  vanished. 
Even  in  remote  Britain,  the  Teutonic  invaders  used  after  a 
time  Roman  ensigns,  and  stamped  their  coins  with  Roman 
devices;  called  themselves  '  Basileis  '  and  'Augusti.'  Es- 
pecially did  the  cities  perpetuate  Rome  through  her  most 
lasting  boon  to  the  conquered,  municipal  self-government ; 
those  of  later  origin  emulating  in  their  adherence  to 
antique  style  others  which,  like  Nismes  and  Cologne, 
Zurich  and  Augsburg,  could  trace  back  their  institutions 
to  the  coloniae  and  municipia  of  the  first  centuries.  On 
the  walls  and  gates  of  hoary  Niirnberg  the  traveller  still 
sees  emblazoned  the  imperial  eagle,  with  the  words 
'  Senatus  populusque  Norimbergensis,'  and  is  borne  in 
thought  from  the  quiet  provincial  town  of  to-day  to  the 
stirring  republic  of  the  fourteenth  century  :  thence  to  the 
Forum  and  the  Capitol  of  her  greater  prototype.k  For,  in 
truth,  through  all  that  period  which  we  call  the  Dark  and 
Middle  Ages,  men's  minds  were  possessed  by  the  belief 
that  all  things  continued  as  they  were  from  the  beginning, 
that  no  chasm  never  to  be  recrossed  lay  between  them 
and  that  ancient  world  to  which  they  had  not  ceased  to 
look  back.  We  who  are  centuries  removed  can  see  that 
there  had  passed  a  great  and  wonderful  change  upon 
thought,  and  art,  and  literature,  and  politics,  and  society 
itself  :  a  change  whose  best  illustration  is  to  be  found  in 
the  process  whereby  there  arose  out  of  the  primitive 
basilica  the  Romanesque  cathedral,  and  from  it  in  turn 
the  endless  varieties  of  Gothic.  But  so  gradual  was  the 

k  Niirnberg  herself  was  not  of  Roman  foundation.  But  this  makes  the 
imitation  all  the  more  curious.  [She  is  no  longer  (1904)  a  quiet  town  as 
when  the  lines  in  the  text  were  written  forty  years  ago.]  The  fashion  even 
passed  from  the  cities  to  rural  communities  like  some  of  the  Swiss  cantons, 
eg.  '  Senatus  populusque  Uronensis.' 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  XV. 
Absence  of 
the  idea  of 
change  or 
progress. 


change  that  each  generation  felt  it  passing  over  them  no 
more  than  a  man  feels  that  perpetual  transformation  by 
which  his  body  is  renewed  from  year  to  year ;  while 
the  few  who  had  learning  enough  to  study  antiquity 
through  its  contemporary  records  were  prevented,  by  the 
utter  want  of  criticism  and  of  what  we  call  historical 
feeling,  from  seeing  how  prodigious  was  the  contrast 
between  themselves  and  those  whom  they  admired. 
There  is  nothing  more  modern  than  the  critical  spirit  which 
fastens  upon  the  differences  between  the  minds  of  men  in 
one  age  and  in  another ;  which  endeavours  to  make  each 
age  its  own  interpreter,  and  judge  what  it  did  or  produced 
by  a  relative  standard.  Such  a  spirit  was,  before  the 
last  two  or  three  centuries,  foreign  to  art  as  well  as  to 
philosophy  and  history.  The  converse  and  the  parallel  of 
the  fashion  of  calling  mediaeval  offices  by  Roman  names, 
and  supposing  them  therefore  the  same,  is  to  be  found  in 
those  old  German  pictures  of  the  siege  of  Carthage  or  the 
battle  between  Porus  and  Alexander,  where  in  the  fore- 
ground two  armies  of  knights,  mailed  and  mounted,  are 
charging  each  other  like  Crusaders,  lance  in  rest,  while 
behind,  through  the  smoke  of  cannon,  loom  out  the  Gothic 
spires  and  towers  of  the  beleaguered  city.  And  thus,  when 
we  remember  that  the  notion  of  progress  and  developement, 
and  of  change  as  the  necessary  condition  thereof,  was 
unwelcome  or  unknown  in  mediaeval  times,  we  may  better 
understand,  though  we  do  not  cease  to  wonder,  how  men, 
never  doubting  that  the  political  system  of  antiquity  had 
descended  to  them,  modified  indeed,  yet  in  essence  the 
same,  should  have  believed  that  the  Frank,  the  Saxon,  and 
the  Swabian  ruled  all  Europe  by  a  right  which  seems  to 
us  not  less  fantastic  than  the  fabled  charter  whereby  Alex- 
ander the  Great  bequeathed  his  empire  to  the  Slavonic 
race  for  the  love  of  Roxolana. 


THE   EMPIRE   AS   AN   INTERNATIONAL   POWER     277 

It  is  a  part  of  that  perpetual  contradiction  of  which  the  CHAP-  xv. 
history  of  the  Middle  Ages  is  full,  that  this  belief  was 
often  quite  out  of  relation  to  actual  facts.  The  more 
abjectly  helpless  the  Emperor  becomes,  so  much  the  more 
sonorous  is  the  language  in  which  the  dignity  of  his  crown 
is  extolled.  His  power,  we  are  told,  is  eternal,  the  pro- 
vinces having  resumed  their  allegiance  after  the  barbarian 
irruptions;1  it  is  incapable  of  diminution  or  injury:  ex- 
emptions and  grants  by  him,  so  far  as  they  tend  to  limit 
his  own  prerogative,  are  invalid : m  all  Christendom  is  still 
of  right  subject  to  him,  though  it  may  contumaciously 
refuse  obedience.11  The  sovereigns  of  Europe  are  solemnly 
warned  that  they  are  resisting  the  power  ordained  of  God.0 
No  laws  can  bind  the  Emperor,  though  he  may  choose  to 
live  according  to  them :  no  court  can  judge  him,  though 

1  Aeneas  Sylvius  Piccolomini  (afterwards  Pope  Pius  II),  an  acute  versatile 
and  somewhat  cynical  politician,  in  his  book  De  Ortu  et  Authoritate  Imperil 
Romani. 

m  Thus  some  civilians  held  Constantine's  Donation  null;  and  the  canon- 
ists, though  originally  clear  as  to  its  legality,  came  to  doubt  whether  the 
Emperor  had  any  right  to  make  it  for  the  opposite  reason,  viz.  that  it  was 
needless,  because  the  Pope  possessed  already  what  it  purported  to  convey. 

n  '  Et  idem  dico  de  istis  aliis  regibus  et  principibus,  qui  negant  se  esse  sub- 
ditos  regi  Romanorum,  ut  rex  Franciae,  Angliae,  et  similes.  Si  enim  fatentur 
ipsum  esse  Dominum  universalem,  licet  ab  illo  universal!  domino  se  subtra- 
hant  ex  privilegio  vel  ex  praescriptione  vel  consimili,  non  ergo  desunt  esse 
cives  Romani,  per  ea  quae  dicta  sunt.  Et  per  hoc  omnes  gentes  quae 
obediunt  S.  matri  ecclesiae  sunt  de  populo  Romano.  Et  forte  si  quis  diceret 
dominum  Imperatorem  non  esse  dominum  et  monarcham  totius  orbis,  esset 
haereticus,  quia  diceret  contra  determinationem  ecclesiae  et  textum  S. 
evangelii,  dum  dicit,  "  Exivit  edictum  a  Caesare  Augusto  ut  describeretur 
universus  orbis."  Ita  et  recognovit  Christus  Imperatorem  ut  dominum.'  — 
Bartolus,  Commentary  on  the  Pandects,  xlviii.  i.  24;  De  Captivis  et postliminio 
reversis. 

0  Peter  de  Andlau,  multis  locis  (see  esp.  cap.  viii),  and  other  writings  of 
the  time.  Cf.  Dante's  letter  to  Henry  VII :  (Ep.  vii)  '  Romanorum  potestas 
nee  metis  Italiae  nee  tricornis  Europae  margine  coarctatur.  Nam  etsi  vim 
passa  in  angustum  gubernacula  sua  contraxit  undique,  tamen  de  inviolabili 


2/8  THE  HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xv.  he  may  condescend  to  be  sued  in  his  own  :  none  may  pre- 
sume to  arraign  the  conduct  or  question  the  motives  of 
him  who  is  answerable  only  to  God.  So  writes  Aeneas 
Sylvius  while  Frederick  the  Third,  chased  from  his  capital 
by  the  Hungarians,  is  wandering  from  convent  to  convent, 
an  imperial  beggar;  while  the  princes,  whom  his  subser- 
viency to  the  Pope  has  driven  into  rebellion,  are  offering 
the  imperial  crown  to  Podiebrad  the  Bohemian  king.p 

Henry  vii,  But  the  career  of  Henry  the  Seventh  in  Italy  is  the 
most  remarkable  illustration  of  the  Emperor's  position  : 
and  imperialistic  doctrines  are  set  forth  most  strikingly 
in  the  treatise  which  the  greatest  spirit  of  the  age  wrote 
to  herald  or  commemorate  the  advent  of  that  hero,  the  De 
Monarchia  of  Dante.q  Rudolf,  Adolf  of  Nassau,  Albert  of 
Hapsburg,  none  of  them  crossed  the  Alps  or  attempted  to 
aid  the  Italian  Ghibelines  who  battled  in  the  name  of  their 
throne.  Concerned  only  to  restore  order  and  aggrandize 
his  house,  and  thinking  apparently  that  nothing  more  was 
to  be  made  of  the  imperial  crown,  Rudolf  was  content 
never  to  receive  it,  and  purchased  the  Pope's  goodwill  by 
surrendering  his  jurisdiction  in  the  capital,  and  his  claims 
over  the  bequest  of  the  Countess  Matilda.  Henry  the 
Luxemburger  ventured  on  a  bolder  course  ;  urged  perhaps 

iure  fluctus  Amphitritis  attingens  vix  ab  inutili  unda  Oceani  se  circumcingi 
dignatur.     Scriptum  est  enim 

"  Nascetur  pulchra  Troianus  origine  Caesar, 

Imperium  Oceano,  famam  qui  terminet  astris." ' 

So  Fr.  Zoannetus,  as  late  as  the  sixteenth  century,  declares  it  to  be  a  mortal 
sin  to  resist  the  Empire,  as  the  power  ordained  of  God. 

P  Cf.  Gerlach  Buxtorff,  Dissertatio  ad  Auream  Bullam. 

i  Boccaccio  says  that  the  De  Monarchia  was  written  in  the  view  of  Henry's 
expedition;  and  he  has  been  generally  followed.  Though  Witte  holds  that 
Dante  wrote  it  before  his  exile,  the  balance  of  argument  seems  to  be  decid- 
edly in  favour  of  the  older  view  which  assigns  it  to  a  later  date,  possibly  1311 
or  1312.  See  Toynbee,  Dante  Studies,  p.  302.  Dante  sees  in  Paradise  the 
place,  marked  by  a  crown,  reserved  for  Henry  VII  (Par.  xxx.  134-138). 


THE   EMPIRE  AS   AN    INTERNATIONAL   POWER    279 


only  by  his  lofty  and  chivalrous  spirit,  perhaps  in  despair  CHAP.  xv. 
at  effecting  anything  with  his  slender  resources  against 
the  princes  of  Germany.  Crossing  from  his  Burgundian  A.D.  1310. 
dominions  with  a  scanty  following  of  knights,  and  descend- 
ing from  the  Cenis  upon  Turin,  he  found  his  prerogative 
as  high  in  men's  belief  after  sixty  years  of  neglect  as  it  had 
stood  under  the  last  Hohenstaufen.  The  cities  of  Lom- 
bardy  opened  their  gates  ;  Milan  decreed  a  vast  subsidy  ; 
Guelf  and  Ghibeline  exiles  alike  were  restored,  and  im- 
perial vicars  appointed  everywhere.  Supported  by  the 
Avignonese  pontiff,  Clement  V,  who  dreaded  the  restless 
ambition  of  his  French  neighbour,  king  Philip  the  Fair, 
Henry  had  the  interdict  of  the  Church  as  well  as  the  ban 
of  the  Empire  at  his  command.  But  the  illusion  of  suc- 
cess vanished  as  soon  as  men,  recovering  from  their  first 
impression,  began  to  be  again  governed  by  their  ordinary 
passions  and  interests,  and  not  by  an  imaginative  rever- 
ence for  the  glories  of  the  past.  Tumults  and  revolts 
broke  out  in  Lombardy  ;  at  Rome  the  king  of  Naples  held 
St.  Peter's,  and  the  coronation,  performed  by  the  Pope's 
legates,  must  take  place  in  the  half-ruined  basilica  of 
St.  John  Lateran,  on  the  southern  bank  of  the  Tiber.' 
The  hostility  of  the  Guelfic  league,  headed  by  the  Floren- 
tines, Guelfs  even  against  the  Pope,  obliged  Henry  to 
depart  from  his  impartial  and  republican  policy,  and  to 
purchase  the  aid  of  the  Ghibeline  chiefs  by  granting  them 
the  government  of  cities.  Meantime  the  Pope  himself, 
under  pressure  from  France,  had  become  unfriendly,  and 
was  throwing  difficulties  in  his  path.  With  few  troops,  and  Death  of 
encompassed  by  enemies,  the  heroic  Emperor  sustained  Henry  vn- 
an  unequal  struggle  for  a  year  longer,  till,  A.D.  1313,  he 
sank  beneath  the  fevers  of  the  deadly  Tuscan  summer. 
His  German  followers  believed,  nor  has  history  wholly 

r  The  church,  half  destroyed  by  fire  in  A.D.  1308,  was  not  yet  rebuilt. 


280 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN  EMPIRE 


CHAP.  XV. 

Later  Em- 
perors in 
Italy. 


Dante's  feel- 
ings and 
theories. 


The  •  De 
Monarchia.' 


rejected  the  tale,  that  poison  was  given  him  by  a  Domini- 
can monk,  in  sacramental  wine. 

Others  after  him  descended  from  the  Alps,  and  Lewis  IV 
even  vindicated,  during  a  few  troubled  months,  the  rights 
of  his  crown  in  Rome.8  But  the  rest  came,  either  like 
Rupert  and  Sigismund,  at  the  behest  of  a  faction,  which 
found  them  useful  tools  for  a  time,  then  flung  them  away 
in  scorn  ;  or  like  Charles  the  Fourth  and  Frederick  the 
Third,  as  the  docile  creatures  of  a  French  or  Italian  pon- 
tiff. With  Henry  the  Seventh  ends  the  history  of  the 
Empire  in  Italy,  and  Dante's  book  is  an  epitaph  instead 
of  a  prophecy.  A  sketch  of  its  argument  will  convey  a 
notion  of  the  feelings  with  which  the  noblest  Ghibelines 
fought,  as  well  as  of  the  spirit  in  which  the  Middle  Ages 
were  accustomed  to  handle  such  subjects. 

Weary  of  the  endless  strife  of  princes  and  cities,  of  the 
factions  which  within  every  city  strove  against  each  other, 
seeing  municipal  freedom,  the  only  mitigation  of  turbu- 
lence, vanish  with  the  rise  of  domestic  tyrants,  Dante 
raises  a  passionate  cry  for  some  power  to  still  the  tempest, 
not  to  quench  liberty  or  supersede  local  self-government, 
but  to  correct  and  moderate  them,  to  restore  unity  and 
peace  to  hapless  Italy.  His  reasoning  is  throughout 
closely  syllogistic  :  he  is  alternately  the  jurist,  the  theo- 
logian, the  scholastic  metaphysician  :  the  poet  of  the 
Divina  Corn-media  is  betrayed  only  by  the  compressed 
energy  of  diction,  by  his  clear  vision  of  the  unseen,  rarely 
by  a  glowing  metaphor. 

Monarchy  is  first  proved  to  be  the  true  and  rightful 
form  of  government.*  Men's  objects  are  best  attained 
during  universal  peace:  this  is  possible  only  under  a 

•  See  above,  chapter  XIII. 

*  This  was  the  argument  of  the  Norwegian  envoys  at  the  Icelandic  Althing 
in  1262:  see  chapter  XII,  p.  i86,antf. 


THE   EMPIRE   AS   AN   INTERNATIONAL   POWER      281 

monarch.  And  as  he  is  the  image  of  the  divine  unity,  CHAP.  xv. 
so  man  is  through  him  made  one,  and  brought  most  near 
to  God.  There  must,  in  every  system  of  forces,  be  a 
'  primum  mobile '  ;  to  be  perfect,  every  organization  must 
have  a  centre,  into  which  all  is  gathered,  by  which  all  is 
controlled.11  Justice  is  best  secured  by  a  supreme  arbiter 
of  disputes,  himself  untempted  by  ambition,  since  his 
dominion  is  already  bounded  only  by  ocean.  Man  is  best 
and  happiest  when  he  is  most  free ;  to  be  free  is  to  exist 
for  one's  own  sake.  To  this  noblest  end  does  the  monarch 
and  he  alone  guide  us ;  other  forms  of  government  are  per- 
verted,1 and  exist  for  the  benefit  of  some  class ;  he  seeks 
the  good  of  all  alike,  being  to  that  very  end  appointed/ 

Abstract  arguments  are  then  confirmed  from  history. 
Since  the  world  began  there  has  been  but  one  period  of 
perfect  peace,  and  but  one  of  perfect  monarchy,  that, 
namely,  which  existed  at  our  Lord's  birth,  under  the 
sceptre  of  Augustus.  Since  then  the  heathen  have  raged, 
and  the  kings  of  the  earth  have  stood  up ;  they  have  set 
themselves  against  their  Lord,  and  His  anointed  the 
Roman  prince. z  The  universal  dominion,  the  need  for 
which  has  been  thus  established,  is  then  proved  to  belong 
to  the  Romans.  Justice  is  the  will  of  God,  a  will  to  exalt 
Rome  shewn  through  her  whole  history.*  Her  virtues 

u  Suggesting  the  celestial  hierarchies  of  Dionysius  the  Areopagite. 

1  Quoting  Aristotle's  Politics. 

y  '  Non  enim  cives  propter  consules  nee  gens  propter  regem,  sed  e  con- 
verso  consules  propter  cives,  rex  propter  gentem.'  (Bk.  i.  ch.  12.) 

1  '  Reges  et  principes  in  hoc  unico  concordantes,  ut  adversentur  Domino 
suo  et  uncto  suo  Romano  Principi,'  having  quoted  '  Quare  fremuerunt  gentes '; 
Psalm  II.  (Bk.  ii.  ch.  I.) 

a  Especially  in  the  opportune  death  of  Alexander  the  Great,  which  de- 
livered Italy  from  the  danger  of  a  Macedonian  conquest. 

In  his  Con-vita  (iv.  5)  Dante  argues  for  the  divine  choice  of  Rome  from 
the  fact  that  Aeneas  came  from  Troy  to  Italy  to  found  it  at  the  very  time 
when  king  David,  the  progenitor  of  Christ's  mother,  was  born. 


282  THE   HOLY  ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xv.  deserved  honour :  Virgil  is  quoted  to  prove  those  of 
The '  De  Aeneas,  who  by  descent  and  marriage  was  the  heir  of  the 
Monarchic  three  continents  :  of  Asia  through  Assaracus  and  Creusa  ; 
of  Africa  by  Electra  (daughter  of  Atlas  and  mother  of 
Dardanus)  and  by  Dido(!);  of  Europe  by  Dardanus  and 
by  Lavinia.  God's  favour  was  approved  in  the  fall  of  the 
shields  to  Numa,  in  the  miraculous  deliverance  of  the 
capital  from  the  Gauls,  in  the  hailstorm  after  Cannae. 
Justice  is  also  the  advantage  of  the  State  :  that  advantage 
was  the  constant  object  of  the  virtuous  Cincinnatus,  and 
the  other  heroes  of  the  republic.  They  conquered  the 
world  for  its  own  good,  and  therefore  justly,  as  Cicero 
attests ; b  so  that  their  sway  was  not  so  much  the  com- 
mand as  the  protection  of  the  whole  earth.  Nature  her- 
self, the  fountain  of  all  right,  had,  by  their  geographical 
position  and  by  the  gift  of  a  genius  so  vigorous,  marked 
them  out  for  universal  dominion  :  — 

'  Excudent  alii  spirantia  mollius  aera, 
Credo  equidem  :  vivos  ducent  de  marmore  vultus ; 
Orabunt  causas  melius,  coelique  meatus 
Describent  radio,  et  surgentia  sidera  dicent : 
Tu  regere  imperio  populos,  Romane,  memento  ; 
Hae  tibi  erunt  artes  ;  pacisque  imponere  morem, 
Parcere  subiectis,  et  debellare  superbos.' 

Finally,  the  right  of  war  asserted,  Christ's  birth,  and 
death  under  Pilate,  ratified  their  government. c  For  Chris- 
tian doctrine  requires  that  the  procurator  should  have  been 
a  lawful  judge,d  which  he  was  not  unless  Tiberius  was  a 

b  Cic.  De  Off.  ii.  8.  '  Ita  ut  illud  patrocinium  orbis  terrarum  potius  quarn 
imperium  poterat  nominari.' 

c  Dante  goes  so  far  as  to  speak  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  under  the 
name  of  Rome,  and  of  Christ  as  Roman.     Beatrice  says  to  him :  — 
'  Sarai  meco  senza  fine  cive 
Di  quella  Roma  onde  Cristo  e  Romano.' 

d  '  Si  Romanum  imperium  de  iure  non  fuit,  peccatum  Adae  in  Christo  non 
fuit  punitum.  ...  Et  supra  totum  humanum  genus  Tiberius,  cuius  vicarius 


THE   EMPIRE   AS   AN    INTERNATIONAL   POWER    283 

lawful  Emperor.    Else  Adam's  sin  and  that  of  his  race  was  CHAP.  xv. 
not  duly  punished  in  the  person  of  the  Saviour. 

The  relations  of  the  imperial  and  papal  power  are  then 
examined,  and  the  passages  of  Scripture  (tradition  being 
rejected),  to  which  the  advocates  of  the  Papacy  appeal,  are 
elaborately  explained  away.  The  argument  from  the  sun 
and  moon e  does  not  hold,  since  both  lights  existed  before 
man's  creation,  and  at  a  time  when,  as  still  sinless,  he 
needed  no  controlling  powers.  Else  accidentia  would  have 
preceded  propria  in  creation.  The  moon,  too,  does  not 
receive  her  being  nor  all  her  light  from  the  sun,  but  so 
much  only  as  makes  her  more  effective.  So  there  is  no 
reason  why  the  temporal  should  not  be  aided  in  a  cor- 
responding measure  by  the  spiritual  authority.  This  diffi- 
cult text  disposed  of,  others  fall  more  easily ;  Levi  and 
Juclah,  Samuel  and  Saul,  the  incense  and  gold  offered  by 
the  Magi ; f  the  two  swords,  the  power  of  binding  and 
loosing  given  to  Peter.  Constantine's  Donation  was 
illegal :  no  single  Emperor  or  Pope  can  disturb  the  ever- 
lasting foundations  of  their  respective  thrones :  the  one 
had  no  right  to  bestow,  nor  the  other  to  receive,  such  a 
gift.  In  giving  the  imperial  crown  to  Charles  the  Great, 
Leo  the  Third  exceeded  his  powers  :  '  iisurpatio  iuris  non 
facit  ius.'  It  is  alleged  that  all  things  of  one  kind  are 
reducible  to  one  individual,  and  so  all  men  to  the  Pope. 
But  Emperor  and  Pope  differ  in  kind,  and  so  far  as  they 
are  men,  are  reducible  only  to  God,  on  whom  the  Empire 

erat  Pilatus,  iurisdictionem  non  habuisset  nisi  Romanian  imperium  de  iure 
fuisset.  Hinc  est  quod  Herodes,  quamvis  ignorans  quid  faceret,  sicut  et 
Caiaphas,  quum  verum  dixit  de  coelesti  decreto,  Christum  Pilato  remisit  ad 
iudicandum.'  (Bk.  ii.  ch.  13.) 

e  See  Note  XVI  at  end. 

f  Typifying  the  spiritual  and  temporal  powers.  Dante  meets  this  by  dis- 
tinguishing the  homage  paid  to  Christ  from  that  which  His  Vicar  can  right- 
fully demand. 


284  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xv.  immediately  depends ;  for  it  existed  before  Peter's  see, 
and  was  recognized  by  Paul  when  he  appealed  to  Caesar. 
The  temporal  power  of  the  Papacy  can  have  been  given 
neither  by  natural  law  nor  divine  ordinance,  nor  universal 
consent :  nay,  it  is  against  its  own  Form  and  Essence,  the 
life  of  Christ,  who  said,  '  My  kingdom  is  not  of  this  world.' 
Man's  nature  is  twofold,  corruptible  and  incorruptible  : 
he  has  therefore  two  ends,  active  virtue  on  earth,  and  the 
enjoyment  of  the  sight  of  God  hereafter;  the  one  to  be  at- 
tained by  practice  conformed  to  the  precepts  of  philosophy, 
the  other  by  the  theological  virtues.  Hence  two  guides 
are  needed,  the  Pontiff  and  the  Emperor,  the  latter  of 
The'De  whom,  in  order  that  he  may  direct  mankind  in  accordance 
Monarckia ' :  with  the  teachings  of  philosophy  to  temporal  blessedness, 
must  preserve  universal  peace  in  the  world.  Thus  are  the 
two  powers  equally  ordained  of  God,  and  the  Emperor, 
though  supreme  in  all  that  pertains  to  the  secular  world,  is 
in  some  things  dependent  on  the  Pontiff,  since  earthly 
happiness  is  subordinate  to  eternal.  'Let  Caesar,  there- 
fore, shew  towards  Peter  the  reverence  wherewith  a  first- 
born son  honours  his  father,  that,  being  illumined  by  the 
light  of  his  paternal  favour,  he  may  the  more  excellently 
shine  forth  upon  the  whole  world,  to  the  rule  of  which  he 
has  been  appointed  by  Him  alone  who  is  of  all  things, 
both  spiritual  and  temporal,  the  King  and  Governor.'  So 
ends  the  treatise. 

Dante's  arguments  are  not  stranger  than  his  omissions. 
No  suspicion  is  breathed  against  the  genuineness  of  Con- 
stantine's  Donation ;  no  proof  is  adduced,  for  no  doubt  is 
felt,  that  the  Empire  of  Henry  the  Seventh  is  the  legiti- 
mate continuation  of  that  which  had  been  swayed  by  Au- 
gustus and  Justinian.  Yet  Henry  was  a  German,  sprung 
from  Rome's  barbarian  foes,  the  elect  of  those  who  had 
neither  part  nor  share  in  Italy  and  her  capital. 


CHAPTER   XVI 

THE   CITY   OF    ROME    IN   THE   MIDDLE   AGES 

*!T  is  related,'  says  Sozomen  in  the  ninth  book  of  his  CHAP,  xvi 
Ecclesiastical  History,  'that  when  Alarich  was  hastening 
against  Rome,  a  holy  monk  of  Italy  admonished  him  to 
spare  the  city,  and  not  to  make  himself  the  cause  of  such 
fearful  ills.  But  Alarich  answered,  "  It  is  not  of  my  own 
will  that  I  do  this  ;  there  is  One  who  forces  me  on,  and 
will  not  let  me  rest,  bidding  me  spoil  Rome." ' a 

Towards  the  close  of  the  tenth  century  the  Bohemian 
Woytech,  famous  in  after  legend  as  St.  Adalbert,  forsook 
his  bishopric  of  Prague  to  journey  into  Italy,  and  settled 
himself  in  the  Roman  monastery  of  Sant'  Alessio.  After 
some  few  years  passed  there  in  religious  solitude,  he  was 
summoned  back  to  resume  the  duties  of  his  see,  and  la- 
boured for  awhile  among  his  half-savage  countrymen.  Soon, 
however,  the  old  longing  came  over  him :  he  resought  his 
cell  upon  the  brow  of  the  Aventine,  and  there,  wander- 
ing among  the  ancient  shrines,  and  taking  on  himself  the 
menial  offices  of  the  convent,  he  abode  happily  for  a  space. 
At  length  the  reproaches  of  his  metropolitan,  the  arch- 
bishop of  Mentz,  and  the  express  commands  of  Pope 
Gregory  the  Fifth,  drove  him  back  over  the  Alps,  and  he 
set  off  in  the  train  of  Otto  the  Third,  lamenting,  says  his 
biographer,  that  he  should  no  more  enjoy  his  beloved  quiet 
in  the  mother  of  martyrs,  the  home  of  the  Apostles,  golden 

•  Hist.  Eccl.  1.  ix.  c.  6  rbv  8t  <f>dvai,  cos  o^x  fK&v  rdSf  ^Tri-^tipel,  d\\d  rit 
u;'-'  c.vrbv  /Stdferat,  Ka.1  ^7riraTT«  rrjv  'P&ii-qv  iropdeiv. 
285 


286  THE    HOLY    ROMAN    EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xvi.  Rome.  A  few  months  later  he  died  a  martyr  among  the 
pagan  Lithuanians  of  the  Baltic.b 

Nearly  four  hundred  years  later,  and  nine  hundred  after 
the  time  of  Alarich,  Francis  Petrarch  writes  thus  to  his 
friend  John  Colonna  :  — 

'Thinkest  thou  not  that  I  long  to  see  that  city  to  which 
there  has  never  been  any  like  nor  ever  shall  be ;  which 
even  an  enemy  called  a  city  of  kings  ;  of  whose  people  it 
hath  been  written,  "  Great  is  the  valour  of  the  Roman 
people,  great  and  terrible  their  name  "  ;  concerning  whose 
unexampled  glory  and  incomparable  empire,  which  was,  and 
is,  and  is  to  be,  divine  prophets  have  sung ;  where  are  the 
tombs  of  the  apostles  and  martyrs  and  the  bodies  of  so 
many  thousands  of  the  saints  of  Christ  ? ' c 

It  was  the  same  irresistible  impulse  that  drew  the  war- 
rior, the  monk,  and  the  scholar  towards  the  mystical  city 
which  was  to  mediaeval  Europe  more  than  Delphi  had 
been  to  the  Greek  or  Mecca  to  the  Islamite,  the  Jerusalem 
of  Christianity,  the  city  which  had  once  ruled  the  earth, 
and  now  ruled  the  world  of  disembodied  spirits.*1  For 
there  was  then,  as  there  is  now,  something  in  Rome  to 

b  See  the  two  Lives  of  St.  Adalbert  in  Pertz,  M.  G.  H.  iv,  evidently  com- 
piled soon  after  his  death. 

c  Another  letter  of  Petrarch's  to  John  Colonna,  written  immediately  after 
his  arrival  in  the  city,  runs  thus :  —  'In  praesens  nihil  est  quod  inchoare  ausim, 
miraculo  rerum  tantarum  et  stuporis  mole  obrutus  .  .  .  praesentia  vero, 
mirum  dictu,  nihil  imminuit  sed  auxit  omnia :  vere  maior  fuit  Roma  maior- 
esque  sunt  reliquiae  quam  rebar :  iam  non  orbem  ab  hac  urbe  domitum  sed 
tarn  sero  domitum  miror.  Vale'  {Epp.  Fam.  ii.  14).  The  reliquiae  have 
been  sadly  reduced  since  Petrarch  wrote,  but  the  stranger  still  feels  after  his 
first  day  in  Rome  that  the  city  is  more  wonderful  than  he  expected. 

d  The  idea  of  the  continuance  of  the  sway  of  Rome  under  a  new  character 
is  one  which  mediaeval  writers  delight  to  illustrate.  In  Appendix,  Note  D, 
there  is  quoted  as  a  specimen  a  poem  upon  Rome,  by  Hildebert  (bishop  of 
Le  Mans,  and  afterwards  archbishop  of  Tours),  written  in  the  beginning 
of  the  twelfth  century. 


THE   CITY   OF   ROME   IN   THE   MIDDLE   AGES      287 

attract  men  of  every  class.  The  devout  pilgrim  came  to  CHAP.  XVL 
pray  at  the  shrine  of  the  Prince  of  the  Apostles,  too  happy 
if  he  could  carry  back  to  his  monastery  in  the  forests  of 
Saxony  or  by  the  bleak  Atlantic  shore  the  bone  of  some 
holy  martyr ;  the  lover  of  learning  and  poetry  dreamed  of 
Virgil  and  Cicero  among  the  shattered  columns  of  the 
Forum  ;  the  Teutonic  kings,  in  spite  of  pestilence,  treach- 
ery and  seditions,  came  with  their  hosts  to  seek  in  the 
ancient  capital  of  the  world  the  fountain  of  temporal 
dominion.  She  was  more  glorious  in  her  decay  and  deso- 
lation than  the  stateliest  seats  of  modern  power.  Nor  has 
the  spell  yet  wholly  lost  its  power.  To  half  the  Christian 
nations  Rome  has  remained  the  metropolis  of  religion,  to 
all  the  metropolis  of  art.  In  her  streets,  and  hers  alone 
among  the  cities  of  the  world,  may  every  form  of  human 
speech  be  heard. 

But  while  men  thought  thus  of  Rome,  what  was  Rome 
herself  ? 

The  modern  traveller,  after  his  first  few  days  in  Rome, 
when  he  has  looked  out  upon  the  Campagna  from  the 
summit  of  St.  Peter's,  paced  the  chilly  corridors  of  the 
Vatican,  and  mused  under  the  echoing  dome  of  the  Pan- 
theon, when  he  has  passed  in  review  the  monuments  of 
regal  and  republican  and  papal  Rome,  begins  to  seek  for 
some  relics  of  the  twelve  hundred  years  that  lie  between 
Constantine  and  Pope  Julius  the  Second.  'Where,'  he 
asks,  'is  the  Rome  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the  Rome  of 
Alberic  and  Hildebrand  and  Rienzo  ?  the  Rome  which 
dug  the  graves  of  so  many  Teutonic  hosts  ;  whither  the  pil- 
grims flocked  ;  whence  came  the  commands  at  which  kings 
bowed  ?  Where  are  the  memorials  of  the  brightest  age  of 
Christian  architecture,  the  age  which  reared  Cologne  and 
Rheims  and  Westminster,  which  gave  to  Italy  the  cathe- 
drals of  Tuscany  and  the  wave-washed  palaces  of  Venice?' 


288  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xvi.  To  this  question  there  is  no  answer.  Rome,  the  mother 
of  the  arts,  has  scarcely  a  building  to  commemorate  those 
times,  for  to  her  they  were  times  of  turmoil  and  misery, 
times  in  which  the  shame  of  the  present  was  embittered 
by  recollections  of  a  brighter  past.  Nevertheless  a  minute 
scrutiny  may  still  discover,  hidden  in  dark  corners  or  dis- 
guised under  an  unbecoming  modern  dress,  much  that 
carries  us  back  to  the  mediaeval  town,  and  helps  us  to 
realize  its  social  and  political  condition.  Therefore  a  brief 
notice  of  the  state  of  Rome  during  the  Middle  Ages,  with 
especial  reference  to  those  monuments  which  the  visitor 
may  still  examine  for  himself,  may  have  its  use,  and  is  no 
unfitting  pendant  to  an  account  of  the  institution  which 
drew  from  the  City  its  name  and  its  magnificent  preten- 
sions. Moreover,  as  will  appear  more  fully  in  the  sequel, 
the  history  of  the  Roman  people  is  an  instructive  illustra- 
tion of  the  influence  of  the  ideas  upon  which  the  Empire 
itself  rested,  as  well  in  their  weakness  as  in  their  strength.6 
It  is  not  from  her  capture  by  Alarich,  nor  even  from 
the  more  destructive  ravages  of  the  Vandal  Gaiserich,  that 
the  material  and  social  ruin  of  Rome  must  be  dated,  but 
rather  from  the  repeated  sieges  which  she  sustained  dur- 
ing the  war  of  Justinian  against  the  Ostrogoths.'  This 

e  The  history  of  the  City  has  been  written  by  Ferdinand  Gregorovius  in 
his  Geschichte  der  Stadt  Rom  im  Mittelalter,  of  which  there  exists  an  English 
translation.  [Since  this  chapter  was  written,  in  1865,  much  has  been  done 
to  unveil  by  excavation  the  antiquities  of  early  imperial  Rome,  but  little 
(except  the  church  of  S.  Maria  Antica)  which  throws  light  on  the  mediaeval 
city  has  been  discovered.] 

fThe  great  siege  in  which  Belisarius  defended  the  city  against  Witigis 
is  fully  and  vividly  described  by  Procopius,  Bell.  Goth.  bks.  i.  and  ii. 

After  capturing  the  city  in  A.D.  546,  Totila,  who  had  at  first  intended  to 
destroy  it  utterly,  turned  out  the  inhabitants,  and  Rome  stood  empty  for  more 
than  a  month.  See  Procop.,  Goth.  iii.  22  (tv  'Pc6/ur;  AvOpanrov  ovdtva,  tdcras, 
dXX'  lp-t)p.ov  avTTjv  rb  wapdirav  diro\urdi>);  and  cf.  Hodgkin,  Italy  and  her 
Invaders,  bk.  v.  ch.  20. 


THE   CITY   OF   ROME   IN   THE   MIDDLE   AGES      289 

struggle,  however,  long  and  exhausting  as  it  was,  would  not  CHAP.  xvi. 
have  proved  so  fatal  had  the  previous  condition  of  the  Causes  of  th* 
city  been  sound  and  healthy.  Her  wealth  and  popula-  r*ftlu  <^ 
tion  in  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century  were  probably  little 
inferior  to  what  they  had  been  in  the  most  prosperous 
days  of  the  imperial  government.  But  this  wealth  was 
entirely  gathered  into  the  hands  of  a  small  and  luxurious 
aristocracy.  The  crowd  that  filled  her  streets  was  com- 
posed partly  of  poor  and  idle  freemen,  unaccustomed  to 
arms  and  long  since  deprived  of  political  rights ;  partly 
of  a  far  more  numerous  herd  of  slaves,  gathered  from  all 
parts  of  the  world,  and  morally  even  lower  than  their 
masters.  There  was  no  middle  class,  and  no  effective 
municipal  administration,  for  although  the  senate  and  con- 
suls with  many  of  the  lesser  magistracies  continued  to 
exist,  they  had  for  centuries  enjoyed  little  power,  and 
were  nowise  fitted  to  lead  and  rule  the  people.  Hence 
it  was  that  when  the  long  Gothic  war  and  the  subsequent 
inroads  of  the  Lombards  had  reduced  the  great  families  4 

to  beggary,  the  old  framework  of  society  dissolved  and 
could  not  be  replaced.  In  a  State  rotten  to  the  core 
there  was  no  vital  force  left  for  reconstruction.  The 
ancient  forms  of  political  activity  had  been  too  long  dead 
to  be  recalled  to  life  :  the  people  wanted  the  moral  force 
to  produce  new  ones,  and  all  the  authority  that  could  be 
said  to  exist  in  the  midst  of  anarchy  tended  to  centre 
itself  in  the  chief  of  the  new  religious  society. 

So  far  Rome's  condition  was  like  that  of  the  other  Peculiarities 
great  towns  of  Italy  and  Gaul.  But  in  two  points  her 
case  differed  from  theirs,  and  to  these  the  difference  of 
her  after  fortunes  may  be  traced.  Her  bishop  had  at 
hand  no  temporal  potentate  to  overshadow  his  dignity  or 
check  his  ambition,  for  the  vicar  of  the  Eastern  court 
lived  far  away  at  Ravenna,  and  seldom  interfered  except 
u 


290 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  xvi.  to  ratify  a  papal  election  or  punish  a  more  than  commonly 
outrageous  sedition.  Her  population  received  an  all  but 
imperceptible  infusion  of  that  Teutonic  blood  and  those 
Teutonic  customs  by  whose  stern  disciple  the  inhabitants 
of  Northern  Italy  were  in  the  end  renovated.  Everywhere 
the  old  institutions  had  perished  of  decay  :  in  Rome  the 
social  and  economic  conditions  were  such  that  it  was  only 
out  of  the  ecclesiastical  system  that  new  institutions  could 
arise.  Her  condition  was  therefore  the  most  pitiable  in 
which  a  community  can  find  itself,  one  of  ceaseless  struggle 
without  purpose  or  progress.  The  citizens  were  divided 
into  three  orders  :  the  military  class,  including  what  was 
left  of  the  ancient  aristocracy  ;  the  clergy,  a  host  of  priests, 
monks,  and  nuns,  attached  to  the  countless  churches  and 
convents ;  and  the  people,  or  plebs,  as  they  are  called,  a 
poverty-stricken  rabble  without  trade,  without  industry, 
with  little  municipal  organization  to  bind  them  together. 
Of  these  two  latter  classes  the  Pope  was  the  natural  leader ; 
the  first  was  divided  into  factions  headed  by  some  three  or 
four  of  the  great  families,  whose  quarrels  kept  the  town  in 
incessant  bloodshed.  The  internal  history  of  Rome  from 
the  eighth  to  the  twelfth  century  is  an  obscure  and  tedious 
record  of  the  contests  of  these  factions  with  each  other, 
and  of  the  aristocracy  as  a  whole  with  the  slowly-growing 
power  of  the  Church. 

The  revolt  of  the  Romans  from  the  Image-breaking 
Emperors  in  the  East,  followed  as  it  was  by  the  reception 
of  the  Franks  as  patricians  and  Emperors,  is  an  event  of 
the  first  importance  in  the  history  of  Italy  and  of  the  Pope- 
dom.  In  the  domestic  constitution  of  Rome  it  made  little 
change.  With  the  instinct  of  a  profound  genius  Charles 
the  Great  saw  that  Rome,  though  it  might  be  ostensibly 
the  capital,  could  not  be  the  seat  of  government  for  his 
dominions.  He  continued  to  reside  in  Germany,  and  did 


Her  condi- 
tion in  the 
ninth  and 
tenth  cen- 
turies. 


THE   CITY  OF   ROME   IN   THE   MIDDLE   AGES      291 

not  even  fit  up  as  a  palace  any  one  of  the  group  of  dwell-  CHAP.  XVL 
ings  that  stood,  some  of  them  still  comparatively  unscathed, 
upon  the  Palatine.  For  a  time  the  awe  of  his  power,  the 
presence  of  his  missus  or  lieutenant,  and  the  occasional 
visits  of  his  successors  Lothar  and  Lewis  II  to  the  city, 
repressed  her  internal  disorders.  But  after  the  death  of 
the  prince  last  named,  and  still  more  after  the  dissolution 
of  the  Carolingian  Empire  itself,  Rome  relapsed  into  a 
state  of  profligacy  and  barbarism  to  which,  even  in  that 
age,  Europe  supplied  no  parallel,  a  barbarism  which  had 
inherited  the  vices  of  civilization  without  its  virtues.  The 
papal  office  in  particular  seemed  to  have  lost  its  religious 
character,  as  many  of  its  occupants  had  lost  all  claim  to 
moral  purity.  For  more  than  a  century  the  chief  priest  of 
Christendom  was  no  more  than  a  tool  of  some  ferocious 
faction  among  the  nobles.  Criminal  means  had  raised  him 
to  the  throne ;  violence,  sometimes  going  the  length  of 
mutilation  or  murder,  deprived  him  of  it.  The  marvel  is, 
a  marvel  in  which  papal  historians  have  not  unnaturally 
discovered  a  miracle,  that  after  sinking  so  low,  the  Papacy 
should  ever  have  risen  again.  Its  rescue  and  exaltation  to 
the  pinnacle  of  glory  was  accomplished  not  by  the  Romans 
but  by  the  efforts  of  the  Transalpine  Church,  aiding  and 
prompting  the  Saxon  and  Franconian  Emperors.  Yet 
even  the  religious  reform  did  not  abate  intestine  turmoil, 
and  it  was  not  till  the  twelfth  century  that  a  new  spirit 
began  to  work  in  politics,  which  ennobled  if  it  could  not 
heal  the  sufferings  of  the  Roman  people. 

Ever  since  the  days  of  Alberic8  their  pride  had  revolted   Growth  of  a 
against  the  haughty  behaviour  of  the  Teutonic  Emperors.   r*P^Kan 
From  still  earlier  times  they  had  been  jealous  of  sacer-  hostility  to 
dotal  authority,   and  now  watched  with  alarm  the  rapid  the  Popes. 
extension  of  its  influence.     The  events  of  the  twelfth  cen- 

K  See  chapter  VI,  supra. 


THE    HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


Arnold  of 
Brescia  in 
Rome, 
1146-1155. 


CHAP.  xvi.  tury  gave  these  feelings  a  definite  direction.  It  was  the 
time  of  the  struggle  of  the  Investitures,  in  which  Gregory 
VII  and  his  disciples  had  been  striving  to  draw  power  over 
the  things  of  this  world  as  well  as  over  those  of  the  next 
into  their  grasp.  It  was  the  era  of  the  revived  study  of 
Roman  law,  by  which  alone  the  extravagant  pretensions 
of  the  decretalists  could  be  resisted.  The  Lombard  and 
Tuscan  towns  had  become  flourishing  republics,  indepen- 
dent of  their  bishops,  and  at  open  war  with  their  Emperor. 
Municipal  self-government  already  existed  at  Rome  in 
some  rude  form,  but  now  its  recent  developement  in  other 
parts  of  Italy,  and  especially  in  the  North,  naturally  told 
upon  the  imperial  city  and  vivified  its  old  traditions. 
While  all  these  things  were  stirring  the  minds  of  the 
Romans,  Arnold  of  Brescia  came  preaching  religious  reform, 
denouncing  the  simoniacal  practices  and  corrupt  life  of  the 
clergy,  not  indeed,  like  some  others  of  the  so-called  schis- 
matics of  his  time,  rejecting  a  sacerdotal  order,  but  pro- 
claiming that  confession  ought  to  be  made  not  to  it,  but 
by  Christians  to  one  another,11  that  the  sinfulness  of  a 
priest  destroyed  the  value  of  the  sacraments  he  adminis- 
tered, that  spiritual  persons  ought  to  be  confined  to  spirit- 
ual duties  and  neither  to  possess  worldly  goods  nor  exercise 
secular  authority.1  On  the  minds  of  the  Romans  such 
teaching  fell  like  the  spark  upon  dry  grass.  They  threw 
off  the  yoke  of  the  Pope,  against  which  the  Comune  di 
Roma  had  often  struggled ;  they  drove  out  the  imperial 
prefect,  reconstituted  the  senate  and  what  they  called  the 

h  A  contemporary  poem  (see  Note  XVII  at  end)  says :  — 
'  Non  debere  illis  populum  delicta  fateri 

Sed  magis  alterutrum,  nee  eorum  sumere  sacra.' 

1  Arnold's  denunciations  of  the  corruptions  in  the  Church  were  probably 
no  stronger  than  those  of  his  contemporary  St.  Bernard,  but  the  latter  con- 
demned Arnold's  doctrines  while  admiring  the  austerity  of  his  life.  So  the 
poem :  '  Vir  nimis  austerus  duraeque  per  omnia  vitae.' 


THE   CITY   OF   ROME   IN   THE   MIDDLE   AGES      293 

equestrian  order  (apparently  an  organization  of  the  minor  CHAP.  xvi. 
nobles),  appointed  consuls,  struck  their  own  coins,  and  pro- 
fessed to  treat  the  Germanic  Emperors  as  their  nominees, 
whose  authority,  though  admitted  as  legitimate,  was  in 
their  view  derived  from  the  Roman  people.  To  have  suc- 
cessfully imitated  the  republican  constitution  of  the  cities 
of  Northern  Italy  would  have  been  much,  but  with  this 
they  were  not  content.  Knowing  in  a  vague  ignorant  way 
that  there  had  been  a  Roman  republic  before  there  was  a 
Roman  Empire,  they  fed  their  vanity  with  visions  of  a 
renewal  of  all  their  ancient  forms,  and  saw  in  fancy  their 
senate  and  people  sitting  again  upon  the  Seven  Hills  and 
ruling  over  the  kings  of  the  earth.  Stepping,  as  it  were, 
into  the  arena  where  Pope  and  Emperor  were  contending 
for  the  headship  of  the  world,  they  rejected  the  one  as  a 
priest,  and  declaring  the  other  to  be  only  their  creature, 
they  claimed  as  theirs  the  true  and  lawful  inheritance  of 
the  world-dominion  which  their  ancestors  had  won.  An- 
tiquity was  in  one  sense  on  their  side,  and  to  us  now  it 
seems  less  strange  that  the  Roman  people  should  aspire 
to  rule  the  earth  than  that  a  German  barbarian  should 
rule  it  in  their  name.  But  practically  the  scheme  was 
absurd,  and  could  not  maintain  itself  against  any  serious 
opposition.  As  a  modern  historian  aptly  expresses  it, 
'they  were  setting  up  ruins:'  they  might  as  well  have 
tried  to  raise  a  stately  temple  out  of  the  broken  columns 
that  strewed  their  Forum.  The  reverence  which  the  men 
of  the  Middle  Ages  felt  for  Rome  was  given  altogether  to 
the  name  and  to  the  place,  and  nowise  to  the  people. 
Their  armed  force  was  insignificant :  so  far  from  holding 
Italy  in  subjection,  they  could  scarcely  maintain  themselves 
against  the  hostility  of  Tusculum. 

Yet  it  might  have  been  worth  the  while  of  the  Germanic 
Emperors  to  have  made  the  Romans  their  allies,  and  bridled 


294 


THE    HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  xvi. 
skort-sighted 

policy  of  the 

Emperors. 


by  their  help  the  temporal  ambition  of  the  Popes.  Over- 
tures  were  addressed  to  Conrad  the  Third  in  1146  —  he 

.  . 

refused  to  receive  the  envoys  or  to  answer  the  letter  — 
and  again  in  1151.  Another  opportunity  arose  when 
Frederick  the  First  approached  Rome  in  1155  at  the  head 
of  a  great  army.5  But  the  Swabian  repelled  in  the  most 
contumelious  fashion  the  envoys  of  the  senate.  Even 
while  he  dreaded  and  resisted,  he  always  respected  the 
Vicar  of  Christ  :  towards  the  Romans  he  felt  the  contempt 
of  a  feudal  king  for  burghers,  and  of  the  Lord  of  the  World 
for  a  petty  knot  of  rebels.  Pope  Hadrian  the  Fourth, 
whose  insight  found  no  heresy  more  dangerous  than  one 
which  threatened  the  authority  of  the  clergy,  had,  by  the 
terrible  weapon  of  interdict  and  with  the  support  of  the 
greater  nobles,  driven  Arnold  of  Brescia  out  of  Rome  ;  and 
when  the  fugitive  found  protection,  near  Viterbo,  from  one 
of  the  counts  of  the  district,  the  Pope  required  Frederick 
to  seize  him.  The  Emperor  was  at  that  moment  seeking  to 
induce  the  Pope  to  crown  him,  so  Arnold  was  taken,  tried 
by  the  prefect  of  the  city,  hanged,  his  body  burned,  and 
his  ashes  cast  into  the  Tiber,  lest  the  people  should  treas- 
ure them  up  as  relics.k  His  constancy  in  the  presence  of 
death,  his  refusal  to  recant,  the  calm  dignity  of  his  silent  con- 
fession and  prayer,  softened  the  executioners,  while  it  moved 
the  beholders  to  tears  ;  and  the  Emperor  himself  regretted 
too  late  his  hasty  compliance  with  the  Pope's  demand.1 

Arnold  is  a  remarkable  figure,  not  only  because  he 
sought  to  reinvigorate  the  civic  life  of  Rome  but  also 
because  his  is  one  of  the  earliest  and  clearest  of  the  voices 

J  Supra,  p.  175. 

k  This  treatment  of  the  dead  was  not  unusual  in  the  Middle  Ages.  The 
remains  of  John  Wiclif  were  disinterred  from  the  chancel  of  his  church  at 
Lutterworth  nearly  forty  years  after  his  death  and  thrown  into  a  stream  called 
the  Swift,  which  runs  past  the  village. 

i  See  Note  XVII  at  end. 


THE  CITY   OF   ROME   IN   THE   MIDDLE   AGES      295 

that  were  raised  from  time  to  time  throughout  the  Middle  CHAP.  xvi. 
Ages  against  the  fatal  secularization  of  the  Church  by  significance 
wealth  and  temporal  authority.  The  Church  he  desired  'larur. 
was  a  church  of  apostolic  poverty.  He  was  an  idealist, 
who  taught,  says  his  contemporary  John  of  Salisbury, 
'things  most  consonant  to  the  law  of  Christians,  and  most 
remote  from  actual  life.'  m  Though  a  disciple  of  Abelard, 
he  is  less  a  dialectician  than  a  theologian,  perhaps  less  a 
theologian  than  a  practical  reformer,  appealing  to  the 
words  of  Scripture,  and  seeking  to  bring  back  the  primi- 
tive simplicity  of  the  early  days  of  Christianity.  He  is  a 
forerunner  in  one  sense  of  Dante,  in  another  of  Marsilius 
of  Padua,  one  may  even  say,  of  the  reformers  of  the  six- 
teenth century.  And,  though  the  attempt  to  revive  against 
the  Pope  the  long  obsolete  powers  of  the  Roman  people 
may  now  seem  fanciful,  it  must  be  remembered  that  the 
rights  of  the  laity  against  the  sacerdotal  order  and  its  head 
had,  in  the  world  as  it  then  stood,  no  institution  whereto 
they  could  attach  themselves,  no  means  whereby  to  make 
themselves  respected,  except  the  Emperor  —  whom  the 
Romans  sought  to  win  — •  and  the  organization,  under  the 
Emperor,  of  a  municipal  republic.  Arnold  was  hopelessly 
overmatched.  Material  force  was  against  him  ;  and  the 
main  stream  of  opinion  was  still  running  strongly  in  the 
channel  into  which  Gregory  VII  had  directed  the  hierarch- 
ical doctrine  of  his  time.  Nor  did  that  stream  slacken  till 
the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth  century.  But  it  is  the  mark 
of  a  hero  to  be  willing  to  face  desperate  odds  :  and  those 
who  in  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century  saw  the  papal  court 
sunk  in  corruption,  in  worldliness,  and  indeed  in  a  sort  of 
paganism,  might  well  deem  that  the  Catholic  Church  would 
have  fared  better  if  the  principles  of  Arnold  had  prevailed. 

m  '  Dicebat  quae  Christianorum  legi  concordant  plurimum  et  a  vita  quam 
plurimum  dissonant.' 


296  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xvi.  The  martyrdom  of  their  Lombard  leader  did  not  quench 
the  hopes  of  his  Roman  followers.  The  republican  con- 
stitution continued  to  exist,  and  rose  from  time  to  time, 
during  the  weakness  or  the  absence  of  the  pontiff,  into  a 
brief  and  fitful  activity."  It  was  indeed  recognized  by  the 
Popes  themselves.  They  used  to  receive  the  title  and 
authority  of  Senator  for  life,  and  in  particular,  in  A.D.  1337, 
Benedict  XII  gratefully  accepted  from  the  people  the 
offices  of  Senator  and  Captain,  Syndic  and  Defensor  of 
the  Republic.0  Once  awakened,  the  idea,  seductive  at 
once  to  the  imagination  of  the  scholar  and  the  vanity 
of  the  Roman  citizen,  could  not  wholly  disappear,  least  of 
all  while  the  Popes  were  absent  at  Avignon,  and  two  cen- 
turies after  Arnold's  time  it  found  a  more  brilliant  though 
less  disinterested  exponent  in  the  tribune  Nicholas  Rienzo.p 
Career  of  the  The  career  of  this  singular  personage  is  misunderstood 
*  *  ^v  tnose  wno  suppose  him  to  have  been  possessed  of  pro- 

found political  insight,  a  republican  on  modern  principles. 
He  was  indeed,  despite  his  overweening  conceit  and  what 
seems  to  us  his  charlatanry,  both  a  patriot  and  a  man  of 
genius,  in  temperament  a  poet,  filled  with  soaring  ideas. 
But  those  ideas,  although  dressed  out  in  gaudier  colours 
by  his  lively  fancy,  were  after  all  only  the  old  ones,  mem- 
ories of  the  long-faded  glories  of  the  heathen  republic,  and 
a  series  of  scornful  contrasts  levelled  at  her  present  op- 
pressors, both  of  them  shewing  no  vista  of  future  greatness 

11  The  series  of  papal  coins  is  interrupted  (with  one  or  two  slight  excep- 
tions) from  A.D.  984  (not  long  after  the  time  of  Alberic)  to  A.D.  1304.  In 
their  place  we  meet  with  various  coins  struck  by  the  municipal  authorities, 
some  of  which  bear  on  the  obverse  the  head  of  the  Apostle  Peter,  with  the 
legend  '  Roman.  Pricipe '  :  on  the  reverse  the  head  of  the  Apostle  Paul, 
legend,  Senat.  Popul.  Q.  R.  Gregorovius,  ut  supra. 

0  Gregorovius,  bk.  xi.  ch.  4. 

P  Rienzo  seems  to  be  a  corruption  of  the  name  Laurence.  The  tribune 
calls  himself  in  his  Latin  letters,  '  Nicolaus  Laurentii.' 


THE   CITY   OF   ROME   IN   THE   MIDDLE   AGES      297 

except  through  the  revival  of  those  ancient  names  to  which  CHAP,  xvi 
there  were  no  things  to  correspond. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  in  A.D.  1327  the  Emperor 
Lewis  IV  had,  in  his  conflict  with  Pope  John  XXII,  sud- 
denly embraced  and  turned  to  account  the  claims  of  the 
city.  Against  the  hostility  of  the  Church  he  set  the  will 
of  the  Roman  people.  Acting  under  their  decree  Sciarra 
Colonna  and  his  three  fellow  Syndics  crowned  the  Bava- 
rian, following,  as  was  alleged,  the  precedent  of  A.D.  800, 
when  Charles  the  Great  had  received  the  Empire  as  the 
gift  of  the  Romans.  If  Cola  di  Rienzo,  then  a  youth  of 
fourteen,  witnessed  the  coronation,  this  recognition  of  the 
rights  of  Rome  may  well  have  sunk  deep  into  his  mind. 
Some  seventeen  years  later,  being  then  a  notary  in  the  A.D.  1344. 
Pope's  service,  he  began  a  strange  campaign  addressed  to 
the  eyes  no  less  than  to  the  ears  of  the  multitude,  in  which 
he  displayed  allegorical  pictures,  and  delivered  harangues 
upon  those  ancient  rights  of  Senate  and  People  which  he 
was  seeking  to  bring  back  into  effective  action,  taking  as 
his  text,  on  one  famous  occasion,  an  inscription  recording 
the  statute  by  which  the  imperium  had  been  conferred 
upon  Vespasian.q  In  A.D.  1347  he  effected  with  the  aid  of  nisrevo- 
some  conspirators,  and  with  the  consent  of  the  Papal  Vicar,  lutwn- 
a  sort  of  bloodless  revolution,  obtained  a  decree  by  which 
he  was  placed  at  the  head  of  the  executive  government  as 
Tribune,  effected  a  number  of  reforms,  and  bridled  the 
excesses  of  the  nobility.  He  then  despatched  letters  to 
all  the  chief  cities  of  Italy  inviting  them  to  send  repre- 

i  This  inscription  on  a  brazen  tablet  may  still  be  seen  in  the  Capitol. 
Boniface  VIII  had  hidden  it  away.  Cola  says,  'Tabula  magna  erea  erat 
literis  antiquis  insignita  quam  Bonifacius  Papa  VIII  in  odium  Imperii  occul- 
tavit  et  de  ea  quoddam  altare  construxit,  a  tergo  litteris  occultatis.'  (Docu- 
ment in  Papencordt's  Cola  di  Rienzo?)  It  has  now  become  a  precious 
historical  authority  for  the  constitutional  history  of  the  old  Empire. 


298 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  xvi.  sentatives  to  a  great  assembly  to  be  held  at  Rome.  Some 
of  them  complied,  and  many  more  received  the  invitation 
respectfully,  for  there  was  a  general  desire  to  be  rid  of 
intestine  strife  and  to  recall  the  Pope  from  Avignon  to 
Rome.  In  a  gathering  of  jurists,  and  again  in  a  Roman 
Parliament,  Cola  solemnly  declared  Rome  to  be  the  Head 
of  the  World,  and  (it  is  said)  revoked  all  the  gifts,  con- 
cessions, and  privileges  which  had  been  conferred  by 
previous  rulers,  from  Constantine  downwards,  upon  the 
Holy  See  and  the  Germanic  Electors/  Somewhat  later, 
repeating  this  declaration,  he  conferred  the  Roman  citizen- 
AUempfto  ship  upon  all  the  cities  of  Italy,  proclaiming  them  to  be  free, 
umte  Italy  asserted  for  the  city  and  people  of  Rome  and  for  Italy 

under  Rome,  J 

the  rights  of  the  Empire  and  the  function  of  choosing  the 
Emperor,  and  cited  the  seven  Electors  and  all  others 
in  Germany  to  appear  before  him  and  defend  such  rights 
as  they  claimed.  Even  the  rival  Emperors  Lewis  IV 
and  Charles  king  of  Bohemia  (who  had  been  chosen 
against  Lewis  in  A.D.  1346)  were  included  in  this  citation. 
The  Romans  applauded,  but  these  latest  assumptions, 
coupled  with  the  whimsical  antics  into  which  Cola's  vanity 
had  betrayed  him,  were  too  much  for  the  public  opinion 
of  Italy,  and  far  too  much  for  the  Pope.  Clement  VI 
denounced  the  Tribune  as  a  heretic,  and  bade  the  Vicar 
depose  him :  the  nobles  gathered  their  forces  against 
Rome,  Cola  quailed  and  fled;  and  when,  after  years  of 
exile  among  the  Apennines,  and  of  captivity  first  in  Bohe- 
mia (whither  he  had  gone  to  win  the  favour  of  Charles  IV), 

r  Whether,  however,  he  intended  to  annul  all  the  gifts  to  the  Holy  See  has 
been  doubted;  a  contemporary  says  he  does  not  think  the  revocation  'ex- 
tendat  se  ad  dominium  Papae  sed  ad  electores  et  Alamanniae  imperatores 
credo  quod  se  extendat  et  opinio  omnium  Romanorum  est.' — Cochetus,  ap, 
Papencordt,  ut  supra,  Doc.  9. 

So  Petrarch,  in  a  letter  to  the  Roman  people,  calls  Rome  '  totius  magnifi- 
centiae  humanae  supremum  domicilium.'  —  {Epist.  sine  tit.  iii.) 


THE   CITY   OF   ROME   IN   THE   MIDDLE   AGES    299 

and  afterwards  at  Avignon,  he  was  sent  back  to  Rome  by  CHAP.  xvi. 
Pope  Innocent  VI  under  the  wing  of  Cardinal  Albornoz,   A.D.  1354, 
he  perished  after  a  brief  spell  of  authority,  torn  to  pieces 
by  the  fierce  and  fickle  populace.      Cola,  with  some  learn-   Cola's 
ing,  and  a  passionate  love  of  antiquity,  possessed  dazzling  ^aracter 

...  *~     and  ideas. 

eloquence  and  histrionic  power.  But  he  had  no  grasp  of 
actualities,  no  sense  of  what  was  possible,  no  faculty  for 
prompt  decision,  and  what  was  no  less  fatal,  he  lacked 
both  military  skill  and  physical  courage.  In  his  later 
career  he  was  by  turns  a  Ghibeline  and  a  Guelf,  equally 
willing  to  bid  for  the  favour  of  the  Emperor  and  for  the 
support  of  the  Pope.  His  appeals  were  made,  not  to  demo- 
cratic principles  but  to  antiquity,  to  the  un quenched  faith 
in  the  name  of  Rome,  to  that  nascent  spirit  of  Italian 
nationality  which  resented  the  intrusion  of  the  foreigner. 
The  idea  of  an  Italy  united  with  Rome  for  its  capital  is 
the  only  one  of  his  dreams  which  proved,  after  five  cen- 
turies, to  be  ultimately  realizable ;  but  his  career  did 
nothing  to  bring  it  nearer.  He  is  memorable  not  as  a 
creator  of  new  ideas,  but  as  one  of  the  last  and  most  fanci- 
ful exponent  of  those  old  ideas  which  were  destined  soon 
thereafter  to  fade  and  vanish  away,  as  the  moon's  light 
dies  out  under  the  brightening  dawn.  This  dawn,  how- 
ever, was  as  yet  scarcely  visible.  Men's  minds  still  lay 
under  the  old  spell.  The  acts  and  plans  of  the  Tribune, 
though  they  astonished  his  contemporaries  by  their  bold- 
ness, do  not  seem  to  have  been  deemed  either  so  strange 
or  so  utterly  unpractical  as  they  appear  to  us  to-day.  In 
the  breasts  of  men  like  Petrarch,  who  loved  Rome  even 
more  than  they  distrusted  her  people,  the  enthusiasm  of 
Cola  found  a  sympathetic  echo :  others  scorned  and  de- 
nounced him  as  an  upstart,  a  demagogue,  possibly  a  heretic, 
certainly  a  rebel.  But  both  friends  and  enemies  seem  to 

•  See  Note  XVIII  at  end  of  volume. 


300  THE    HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xvi.  have  comprehended  and  regarded  as  natural  his  feelings 
and  designs,  which  were  altogether  those  of  his  age. 
Being,  however,  a  mere  matter  of  imagination,  not  of 
reason,  having  no  anchor,  so  to  speak,  in  realities,  no  true 
relation  to  the  world  as  it  then  stood,  these  schemes  of 
republican  revival  were  as  transient  and  unstable  as  they 
were  quick  of  growth  and  gay  of  colour.  As  the  authority 
of  the  Popes  became  consolidated,  and  free  municipalities 
disappeared  elsewhere  throughout  Italy,  the  dream  of  a 
renovated  Rome  at  length  withered  up  and  fell  and  died. 
Its  last  struggle  was  made  in  the  conspiracy  of  Stephen 

A.D.  1453.  Porcaro,  in  the  time  of  Pope  Nicholas  the  Fifth  ;  and  from 
that  time  onward  there  was  no  question  of  the  supremacy 
of  the  bishop  within  his  holy  city. 

It  is  never  without  a  certain  regret  that  we  watch  the 
disappearance  of  a  belief,  however  illusive,  around  which 
the  love  and  reverence  of  mankind  once  clung.  But  this 
illusion  need  be  the  less  regretted  in  that  it  had  only 
the  feeblest  influence  for  good  on  the  state  of  mediaeval 

Causes  of  the  Rome.      During    the    three    centuries    that   lie   between 

failure  of  the  Arnold  of  Brescia  and   Porcaro,   the  disorders  of  Rome 

struggle  for 

independence,  were  hardly  less  violent  than  they  had  been  in  the  Dark 
Ages,  and  to  all  appearance  worse  than  those  of  any 
other  European  city.  There  was  a  want  not  only  of 
fixed  authority,  but  of  those  elements  of  social  stability 
which  the  other  cities  of  Italy  possessed.  In  the  greater 
republics  of  Lombardy  and  Tuscany  the  bulk  of  the  popu- 
lation were  artizans,  hard-working  orderly  people ;  while 
above  them  stood  a  prosperous  middle  class,  engaged 
mostly  in  commerce,  and  having  in  their  system  of  trade- 
guilds  an  organization  both  firm  and  flexible.  It  was  by 
foreign  trade  that  Genoa,  Venice,  and  Pisa  became  great, 
as  it  was  the  wealth  acquired  by  manufacturing  industry 
that  enabled  Milan  and  Florence  to  overcome  and  incor- 


THE   CITY   OF   ROME   IN    THE   MIDDLE   AGES      301 

porate    the    territorial    aristocracies    which    surrounded  CHAP.  xvi. 
them. 

Rome  possessed  neither  source  of  riches.  She  was 
ill-placed  for  trade ;  having  no  market  she  produced  no 
goods  to  be  disposed  of,  and  the  unhealthiness  which 
long  neglect  had  brought  upon  her  Campagna  made  its 
fertility  unavailable.  Already  she  stood  as  she  stood 
down  to  our  own  time,  lonely  and  isolated,  a  desert  at 
her  very  gates.  As  there  was  no  industry,  so  there  was  internal 
nothing  that  deserved  to  be  called  a  citizen  class.  The  condition  °f 

the  city. 

people  were  a  mere  rabble,  prompt  to  follow  the  dema-  Thepeopie 
gogue  who  flattered  their  vanity,  prompter  still  to  desert 
him  in  the  hour  of  danger.  Superstition  was  with  them 
a  matter  of  national  pride,  but  they  lived  too  near  sacred 
things  to  feel  much  reverence  for  them  :  they  ill-treated 
the  Pope  and  fleeced  the  pilgrims  who  crowded  to  their 
shrines  :  they  were  probably  the  only  community  in 
Europe  that  sent  no  recruit  to  the  armies  of  the  Cross. 
Priests,  monks,  and  all  the  nondescript  hangers-on  of  an 
ecclesiastical  court  formed  a  large  part  of  the  population  ; 
while  of  the  rest  many  were  supported  in  a  state  of  half- 
mendicancy  by  the  countless  religious  foundations,  them- 
selves enriched  by  the  gifts  or  the  plunder  of  Latin 
Christendom.  The  noble  families  were  numerous,  turbu-  The  nobility. 
lent,  ferocious  ;  they  were  surrounded  by  bands  of  unruly 
retainers,  and  waged  a  constant  war  against  each  other 
from  their  castles  in  the  adjoining  country  or  in  the 
streets  of  the  city  itself.  Had  things  been  left  to  take 
their  natural  course,  one  of  these  families,  the  Colonna, 
for  instance,  or  the  Orsini,  would  probably  have  ended 
by  overcoming  its  rivals,  and  have  established,  as  was 
the  case  in  the  republics  of  Lombardy,  Romagna,  and 
Tuscany,  a  'signoria'  or  local  tyranny,  like  those  which 
had  once  prevailed  in  the  cities  of  Greece.  But  the  The  bishop. 


302 


THE   HOLY  ROMAN   EMPIRE 


The  Em- 
peror. 


CHAP.  xvi.  presence  of  the  sacerdotal  power,  as  it  had  hindered  the 
growth  of  feudalism,  stood  also  in  the  way  of  such  a 
developement  as  this,  and  in  so  far  aggravated  the  con- 
fusion of  the  city.  Although  the  Pope  did  not  till  the 
fifteenth  century  establish  his  title  as  legitimate  sovereign, 
he  was  by  far  the  most  considerable  person  in  Rome,  and 
the  only  one  whose  authority  had  both  a  permanent  and  an 
official  character.  But  the  reign  of  each  pontiff  was  short ; 
he  had  no  military  force,  he  was  frequently  —  and  from  1305 
till  1378  continuously  —  absent  from  his  see.  He  was, 
moreover,  very  often  a  member  of  one  of  the  great  families, 
and,  as  such,  no  better  than  a  faction  leader  at  home,  while 
venerated  by  the  rest  of  Europe  as  the  Universal  Priest. 

The  person  who  should  have  been  to  Rome  what  the 
national  king  was  to  the  cities  of  France,  or  England,  or 
Germany,  was  the  Emperor.  But  he  was  like  one  of 
those  wandering  hero-spectres  in  the  Odyssey  who  draw 
from  a  draught  of  blood  a  momentary  vitality,  and  then 
relapse  into  shadowy  feebleness.  When  he  came  with  an 
army,  and  the  streets  of  Rome  were  filled  with  slaughter, 
he  secured  a  few  days  or  weeks  of  power.  At  other 
times  his  phantom  authority  did  little  more  than  furnish 
a  pretext  to  the  Colonna  and  other  Ghibeline  chieftains 
for  their  opposition  to  the  papal  party.  Even  his  abstract 
rights  were  matter  of  controversy.  The  Popes,  whose  pre- 
decessors had  been  content  to  govern  as  the  lieutenants 
of  Charles  and  Otto,  now  maintained  that  Rome  as  a 
spiritual  city  could  not  be  subject  to  any  temporal  juris- 
diction, and  that  she  was  therefore  not  really  a  part  of 
the  Emperor's  dominions,  though  at  the  same  time  his 
capital.  Not  only,  it  was  urged,  had  Constantine  yielded 
up  Rome  to  Sylvester  and  his  successors,  Lothar  the 
Saxon  had  at  his  coronation  formally  renounced  his  sov- 
ereignty by  doing  homage  to  the  pontiff  and  receiving 


THE   CITY   OF   ROME   IN  THE   MIDDLE   AGES      303 

the  crown  as  his  vassal.  The  Popes  felt  then  as  they  CHAP.  xvi. 
feel  now,  that  their  dignity  and  influence  would  suffer  if 
they  should  even  appear  to  admit  in  their  place  of  resi- 
dence the  jurisdiction  of  a  civil  potentate,  and  although 
they  could  not  secure  their  own  authority,  they  were  at 
least  able  to  exclude  any  other.  Hence  it  was  that  they 
were  so  uneasy  whenever  an  Emperor  came  to  them  to 
be  crowned,  that  they  raised  up  difficulties  in  his  path, 
and  endeavoured  to  be  rid  of  him  as  soon  as  possible. 
And  here  something  must  be  said  of  the  programme,  as  visits  of  the 
one  may  call  it,  of  these  imperial  visits  to  Rome,  and  of  Emferors  to 
the  marks  of  their  presence  which  the  Germans  left  be- 
hind them,  remembering  always  that  after  the  time  of 
Frederick  the  Second  it  was  rather  the  exception  than 
the  rule  for  an  Emperor  to  be  crowned  in  his  capital  at  all. 
The  traveller  who  to-day  enters  Rome  by  the  railway 
from  the  north,  slips  in  before  he  is  aware,  is  huddled  into 
a  vehicle  at  the  terminus,  and  set  down  at  his  hotel  in  the 
middle  of  the  modern  town  before  he  has  caught  a  glimpse 
of  the  city  from  a  distance.  Fifty  years  ago  when  he  came 
overland  from  Tuscany  along  the  bleak  road  that  passes 
near  Veii  and  crosses  the  Milvian  bridge,  he  had  indeed 
from  the  slopes  of  the  Ciminian  range  a  splendid  prospect 
of  the  sea-like  Campagna,  girdled  in  by  glittering  hills,  but 
of  the  city  he  saw  no  sign,  save  the  pinnacle  of  St.  Peter's, 
until  he  was  within  the  walls.  Far  otherwise  was  it  in  the 
Middle  Ages.  Then  travellers  of  every  grade,  from  the  Their 
humble  pilgrim  to  the  new-made  archbishop  who  came  in 
the  pomp  of  a  lengthy  train  to  receive  from  the  Pope  the 
pallium  of  his  office,  approached  from  the  north  or  north- 
east side ;  following  a  track  along  the  hilly  ground  on  the 
Tuscan  side  of  the  Tiber  until  they  halted  on  the  brow  of 
Monte  Mario  —  the  Mount  of  Joy*  —  and  saw  the  city  of 

*  The  Germans   called  this  hill,  which  is  one  of  the  highest  in  or   near 


304 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  xvi.  their  solemnities  lie  spread  before  them,  from  the  great 
pile  of  the  Lateran  far  away  upon  the  Coelian  hill,  to  the 
basilica  of  St.  Peter's  at  their  feet.  They  saw  it  not,  as 
now,  a  sea  of  billowy  cupolas,  but  a  mass  of  low,  red-roofed 
houses,  varied  by  tall  brick  towers,  and  at  rarer  intervals 
by  masses  of  ancient  ruin,  then  larger  far  than  now  ;  while 
over  all  rose  those  two  monuments  of  the  best  of  the 
heathen  Emperors,  monuments  that  still  look  down, 
serenely  changeless,  on  the  armies  of  new  nations  and 
the  festivals  of  a  new  religion  —  the  columns  of  Marcus 
Aurelius  and  Trajan. 

s'heir  From  Monte  Mario  the  Teutonic  host  descended,  when 

entrance.  they  had  paid  their  orisons,  into  the  Neronian  field,  the 
piece  of  flat  land  that  lies  outside  the  gate  of  St.  Angelo.u 
Here  it  was  the  custom  for  the  elders  of  the  Romans  to 
meet  the  elected  Emperor,  present  their  charters  for  con- 
firmation, and  receive  his  oath  to  preserve  their  good 
customs.1  Then  a  procession  was  formed :  the  priests 
and  monks,  who  had  come  out  with  hymns  to  greet  the 
Emperor,  led  the  way ;  the  knights  and  soldiers  of  Rome, 
such  as  they  were,  came  next ;  then  the  monarch,  followed 
by  a  long  array  of  Transalpine  chivalry.  Passing  into  the 
city  they  advanced  to  St.  Peter's,  where  the  Pope,  sur- 
rounded by  his  clergy,  stood  on  the  great  staircase  of  the 
basilica  to  welcome  and  bless  the  Roman  king.  On  the 

Rome,  conspicuous  from  a  beautiful  group  of  stone-pines  and  cypresses  upon 
its  brow,  Mons  Gaudii;  the  origin  of  the  Italian  name,  Monte  Mario,  is  not 
known,  unless  it  be,  as  some  think,  a  corruption  of  Mons  Malus. 

There  is  now  a  fortification  on  the  top  which  makes  the  best  point  of  view 
less  accessible  than  it  used  to  be. 

It  was  on  this  hill  that  Otto  the  Third  hanged  Crescentius  and  his  followers. 

u  This  Campus  Neronianus  —  the  name  is  as  old  as  the  sixth  century :  see 
Procop.  Goth.  i.  19  —  has  since  1885  been  largely  covered  by  the  houses  of 
the  new  quarter  of  Rome  called  Prati  di  Castello. 

*  See  the  Ordo  Romanus  in  Muratori's  third  Dissertation  in  the  Antiqui- 
tates  Italiae  medii  aem. 


THE  CITY  OF   ROME   IN   THE   MIDDLE  AGES      305 

next  day  came  the  coronation,  with  ceremonies  too  elabo-  CHAP.  xvi. 
rate  for  description,7  ceremonies  which,  we  may  well  be- 
lieve, were  seldom  duly  completed.     Far  more  usual  were 
other  rites,  of  which  the  book  of  ritual  makes  no  mention, 
unless  they  are  to  be  counted  among  the  'good  customs 
of  the  Romans  ' ;  the  clang  of  war-bells,  the  battle-cry  of 
German    and   Italian    combatants.       The    Pope,   when   he  Hostility  of 
could    not   keep   the   Emperor  from    entering    Rome,  re-    p°Pe  and 

r  c  people  to  the 

quired  him  to  leave  the  bulk  of  his  host  without  the  walls,  Germans. 
and  if  foiled  in  this,  sought  safety  in  raising  up  plots  and 
seditions  against  his  too  powerful  friend.  The  Roman 
people,  on  the  other  hand,  violent  as  they  often  were 
against  the  Pope,  had  nevertheless  a  sort  of  national  pride 
in  him.  Very  different  were  their  feelings  towards  the 
Teutonic  chieftain,  who  came  from  a  far  land  to  receive 
in  their  city,  yet  without  thanking  them  for  it,  the  ensign 
of  a  power  which  the  prowess  of  their  forefathers  had  won. 
Bereft  of  their  ancient  right  to  choose  the  universal  bishop, 
they  clung  all  the  more  desperately  to  the  belief  that  it 
was  they  who  chose  the  universal  prince  ;  and  were  morti- 
fied afresh  when  each  successive  sovereign  contemptu- 
ously scouted  their  claims,  and  paraded  before  their  eyes 
his  rude  barbarian  cavalry.  Thus  it  was  that  a  Roman 
sedition  was  the  usual  accompaniment  of  a  Roman  corona- 
tion. The  three  revolts  against  Otto  the  Great  have  been 
already  described.  His  grandson  Otto  the  Third,  in  spite 
of  his  passionate  fondness  for  the  city,  was  met  by  the 
same  faithlessness  and  hatred,  and  departed  at  last  in 

y  Great  stress  was  laid  on  one  part  of  the  procedure,  —  the  holding  by  the 
Emperor  of  the  Pope's  stirrup  for  him  to  mount,  and  the  leading  of  his  pal- 
frey for  some  distance.  Frederick  Barbarossa's  omission  of  this  mark  of 
respect  when  Pope  Hadrian  IV  met  him  on  his  way  to  Rome,  had  nearly 
caused  a  breach  between  the  two  potentates,  Hadrian  absolutely  refusing  the 
kiss  of  peace  until  Frederick  should  have  gone  through  the  form,  which  he 
was  at  last  forced  to  do  in  the  presence  of  the  army :  '  fortiter  streugam  tenuit.' 
X 


306  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xvi.  despair  at  the  failure  of  his  attempts  at  conciliation.2  A 
century  afterwards  Henry  the  Fifth's  coronation  produced 
violent  tumults,  occasioned  by  his  seizing  the  Pope  and 
cardinals  in  St.  Peter's,  and  keeping  them  prisoners  till 
they  submitted  to  his  terms.  Remembering  this,  Pope 
Hadrian  the  Fourth  would  fain  have  forced  the  troops  of 
Frederick  Barbarossa  to  remain  without  the  walls,  but  the 
rapidity  of  their  movements  disconcerted  his  plans  and 
anticipated  the  resistance  of  the  Roman  populace.  Hav- 
ing established  himself  in  the  Leonine  city,a  Frederick 
barricaded  the  bridge  over  the  Tiber  under  the  fortress  of 
St.  Angelo,  and  was  duly  crowned  in  St.  Peter's.  But  the 
rite  was  scarcely  finished  when  the  Romans,  who  had 
assembled  in  arms  on  the  Capitol,  dashed  over  the  bridge, 
fell  upon  the  Germans,  and  were  with  difficulty  repulsed 
by  the  personal  efforts  of  the  Emperor.  Into  the  city, 
whose  narrow  streets  and  thick-set  strongholds  made  ad- 
vance dangerous,  he  did  not  venture  to  pursue  them,  nor 
was  he  at  any  period  of  his  reign  able  to  make  himself 
master  of  the  whole  of  it.  Finding  themselves  similarly 
baffled,  his  successors  at  last  accepted  their  position,  and 
were  content  to  take  the  crown  on  the  Pope's  conditions 
and  depart  without  further  question. 

z  A  remarkable  speech  of  expostulation  made  by  Otto  III  to  the  Roman 
people  (after  one  of  their  revolts)  from  the  tower  of  his  house  on  the  Aven- 
tine  has  been  preserved  to  us.  It  begins  thus :  '  Vosne  estis  mei  Romani  ? 
Propter  vos  quidem  meam  patriam,  propinquos  quoque  reliqui;  amore  vestro 
Saxones  et  cunctos  Theotiscos,  sanguinem  meum,  proieci;  vos  in  remotas 
partes  imperii  nostri  adduxi,  quo  patres  vestri  cum  orbem  ditione  premerent 
numquam  pedem  posuerunt;  scilicet  ut  nomen  vcstrum  et  gloriam  ad  fines 
usque  dilatarem;  vos  filios  adoptavi:  vos  cunctis  praetuli.' — Vita  S.  Bern- 
war  di ;  in  Pertz,  M.  G.  H.  t.  iv. 

(It  is  from  this  form  '  Theotiscus '  that  the  Italian  '  Tedesco '  seems  to 
have  been  derived.) 

a  The  Leonine  city,  so  called  from  Pope  Leo  IV,  lay  between  the  Vatican 
and  St.  Peter's  and  the  river. 


THE   CITY   OF   ROME   IN   THE   MIDDLE   AGES      307 

Coming  so  seldom  and  remaining  for  so  short  a  time,  it  CHAP,  xvi, 
is  not  wonderful  that  the  Teutonic  Emperors  should,  in  Memorials 
the  seven  centuries  from  Charles  the  Great  to  Charles  the  ^^  £^~ 
Fifth,  have  left  fewer  marks  of  their  presence  in  Rome  perorsin 
than  Titus  or  Hadrian  alone  has  done ;  fewer  and  less  Rome- 
considerable  even  than  those  which  tradition  attributes  to 
Servius  Tullius  and  the  elder  Tarquin.    Those  monuments 
which  do  exist  are  just  sufficient  to  make  the  absence  of 
all  others  more  conspicuous.     The  most  important  dates 
from  the  time  of  Otto  the  Third,  the  only  Emperor  who    of  OHO  the 
attempted  to  make   Rome  his  permanent  residence.     Of    Tllird- 
the  palace,  possibly  nothing  more  than  a  tower,  which  he 
built  on  the  Aventine,  no  trace  has  been  discovered ;  but 
the  church,  founded  by  him  to  receive  the  ashes  of  his 
friend  the  martyred  St.  Adalbert,  may  still  be  seen  upon 
the  island  in  the  Tiber.     In  it  there  stands,  in  front  of  the 
high  altar,  an  ancient  marble  font  which  shews  upon  one 
side  a  figure  of  St.  Adalbert,  and  on  another  side  one  of 
the  Emperor  himself,  both  executed  in  the  rude  style  of 
the  eleventh  century.     Having  received  from  Benevento 
relics  supposed  to  be  those  of  Bartholomew  the  Apostle, b 
it  became  dedicated  to  that  saint,  and  is  at  present  the 
church   of    San    Bartolommeo    in    Isola,    whose   quaintly 
picturesque  bell-tower  of  red  brick,  now  grey  with  extreme 
age,  looks  out  from  among  the  orange-trees  of  a  convent 
garden  over  the  swift-eddying  yellow  waters  of  the  Tiber. 

Otto  the  Second,  son  of  Otto  the  Great,  died  at  Rome,    of  otto  the 
and  lies  buried  in  the  crypt  of  St.  Peter's,  the  only  Em-  Second. 
peror  who  has  found  a  resting-place  among  the  graves  of 
the  Popes.c      His  tomb  is  not  far  from  that  of  his  nephew 
Pope  Gregory  the  Fifth  :  it  is  a  plain  one  of  roughly  chis- 

*  It  would  seem  that  Otto  was  deceived,  and  that  in  reality  they  are  the 
bones  of  St.  Paulinus  of  Nola. 

c  As  to  the  burial-places  of  the  Emperors,  see  Note  XIX  at  end. 


308  THE   HOLY    ROMAN    EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xvi.  elled  marble.  The  lid  of  the  superb  porphyry  sarcophagus 
in  which  he  lay  for  a  time  now  serves  as  the  great  font  of 
St.  Peter's,  and  may  be  seen  in  the  baptismal  chapel  on  the 
left  of  the  entrance  of  the  church,  not  far  from  the  monu- 
ment to  the  last  of  the  English  Stuarts.  Last  of  all  must 
be  mentioned  a  curious  relic  of  the  Emperor  Frederick 
Oj  Frederick  the  Second,  the  prince  whom  of  all  others  one  would  least 
the  second.  expect  to  see  honoured  in  the  city  of  his  foes.  It  is  an 
inscription  in  the  palace  of  the  Conservators  upon  the 
Capitoline  hill,  built  into  the  wall  of  the  great  staircase, 
and  relates  the  victory  of  Frederick's  army  over  the  Mil- 
anese, and  the  capture  of  the  carrocciod  of  the  rebel  city, 
which  he  sends  as  a  trophy  to  his  faithful  Romans.  These 
are  all  or  nearly  all  the  traces  of  her  Teutonic  lords  that 
Rome  has  preserved  till  now.  Pictures  indeed  there  are 
in  abundance,  from  the  mosaic  of  the  Scala  Santa  at  the 
Lateran  e  and  the  curious  frescoes  in  the  church  of  Santi 
Quattro  Incoronati/  down  to  the  paintings  of  the  Sistine 
antechapel  and  the  Stanze  of  Raphael  in  the  Vatican, 
where  the  triumphs  of  the  Popedom  over  all  its  foes  are 
set  forth  with  matchless  art  and  equally  matchless  unve- 
racity.  But  these  are  mostly  long  subsequent  to  the 
events  they  describe,  and  these  all  the  world  knows. 

Associations  of  the  highest  interest  would  have  attached 
to  the  churches  in  which  the  imperial  coronation  was  per- 

d  See  note  *,  p.  178. 

•  See  p.  116. 

f  These  highly  curious  frescoes  are  in  the  chapel  of  St.  Sylvester  attached 
to  the  very  ancient  church  of  Quattro  Santi  on  the  Coelian  hill,  and  are  sup- 
posed to  have  been  executed  in  the  time  of  Pope  Innocent  III,  possibly  re- 
producing more  ancient  pictures  which  had  disappeared.  They  represent 
scenes  in  the  life  of  the  Saint,  more  particularly  the  making  of  the  famous 
donation  to  him  by  Constantine,  who  submissively  holds  the  bridle  of  his 
palfrey.  See  p.  169.  The  picture  was  evidently  executed  under  the  influence 
of  the  claim  advanced  by  Hadrian  IV. 


THE   CITY  OF   ROME   IN   THE   MIDDLE   AGES      309 

formed  —  a  ceremony  which,  whether  we  regard  the  dig-  CHAP.  xvi. 
nity  of  the  performers  or  the  splendour  of  the  adjuncts, 
was  probably  the  most  imposing  that  Europe  has  known. 
But  old  St.  Peter's  disappeared  in  the  end  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  not  long  after  the  last  Roman  coronation,  that 
of  Frederick  the  Third,  while  the  basilica  of  St.  John 
Lateran,  in  which  Lothar  the  Saxon  and  Henry  the  Sev- 
enth were  crowned,  damaged  by  time  and  by  fire  and  an 
earthquake  in  the  fourteenth  century,  has  been  so  wofully 
modernized  that  we  can  hardly  figure  it  to  ourselves  as 
the  same  building.g 

Bearing    in    mind    what    was   the   social    condition    of   Causa  of 
Rome  during  the  Middle  Ages,  it  becomes  easier  to  under-  thewant°f 

,  .  ,    .  i  •    i  /.  .  mediaeval 

stand  the  architectural  barrenness  which  at  first   excites  monuments 
the   visitor's   surprise.       Rome    had    no   temporal   sove-  ** Rome, 
reign,    and   there   were    therefore  only   two  classes   who 
could  build  at  all,  the  nobles  and  the  clergy.     Of  these, 
the  former  had  seldom  the  wealth,  and  never  the  taste, 
which  would  have  enabled  them  to  construct  palaces  grace- 
ful as  the  Venetian  or  massively  grand  as  the  Florentine  Barbarism 
and   Genoese.      Moreover,  the   constant   practice  of   war  oftkearis- 
within  the  city  made  defence  the  first  object  of  a  house, 
beauty  and  convenience  the  second.     Down  to  the  middle 
of  the  fifteenth  century,  fortresses  rather  than  mansions 
were  what  the  great  families  needed.     The  nobility,  there- 
fore, either  adapted   ancient  edifices  to   their  purpose  or 
built  out  of  their  materials  those  huge  square  towers  of 
brick,  a  few  of  which  still  frown  over  the  narrow  streets  in 
the  older  parts  of  Rome.     We  may  judge  of  their  number 

8  The  last  imperial  coronation,  that  of  Charles  the  Fifth,  took  place  in  the 
church  of  St.  Petronius  at  Bologna,  Pope  Clement  VII  being  unwilling  to 
receive  Charles  in  Rome.  It  is  a  grand  church,  but  the  choir,  where  the 
ceremony  took  place,  has  been  '  restored '  out  of  recognition  since  Charles's 
time. 


3io 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  xvi.  from  the  statement  that  the  senator  Brancaleone  lev- 
elled one  hundred  and  forty  of  them,  as  Frederick  I  had 
in  his  time  destroyed  a  good  many.  With  perhaps  no 
more  than  one  exception,  that  of  the  so-called  House  of 
Rienzo,  a  building  obviously  older  by  at  least  two  cen- 
turies than  the  Tribune's  time,  these  towers  are  the  only 
domestic  edifices  in  the  city  erected  before  the  middle  of 
the  fifteenth  century.  The  vast  palaces  to  which  strangers 
now  flock  for  the  sake  of  the  picture  galleries  they  con- 
tain, have  been  most  of  them  constructed  in  the  sixteenth 
or  seventeenth  centuries,  a  few  even  later.  Among  the 
earliest  is  that  Palazzo  Cenci,h  whose  gloomy  low- 
browed arch  so  powerfully  affected  the  imagination  of 
Shelley. 

It  was  no  want  of  wealth  that  hampered  the  architectu- 
ral efforts  of  the  clergy,  for  large  revenues  flowed  in  upon 
them  from  every  corner  of  Christendom.  A  good  deal 
was  actually  spent  upon  the  erection  or  repairs  of  churches 
and  convents,  although  with  a  less  liberal  hand  than  that 
of  such  great  Transalpine  prelates  as  Hugh  of  Lincoln  or 
Conrad  of  Cologne.  But  the  Popes  always  needed  money 
for  their  projects  of  ambition,  and  in  times  when  disorder 
and  corruption  were  at  their  height  the  work  of  building 
stopped  altogether.  Thus  it  was  that  after  the  time  of  the 
Carolingians  scarcely  a  church  was  erected,  though  some 
were  repaired  and  enlarged,  until  the  beginning  of  the 
twelfth  century,  when  the  reforms  of  Hildebrand  had 
breathed  new  zeal  into  the  priesthood.  The  Babylonish 
captivity  of  Avignon,  as  it  was  called,  with  the  Great 
Schism  of  the  West  that  followed  upon  it,  was  the  cause 


Why  more 
•was  not  done 
by  the  clergy. 


A.D.  1308- 

1377- 

A.D.  1378- 
1417. 


h  The  name  of  Cenci  is  a  very  old  one  at  Rome :  it  is  supposed  to  be  an 
abbreviation  of  Crescentius.  We  hear  in  the  eleventh  century  of  a  certain 
Cencius,  who  on  one  occasion  made  Gregory  VII  prisoner.  The  Palazzo 
Venezia  at  the  southern  end  of  the  present  Corso  is  also  of  early  date. 


THE   CITY   OF   ROME   IN   THE   MIDDLE   AGES      311 

of  a  second  similar   intermission,  which  lasted  nearly  a  CHAP.  xvi. 
century  and  a  half. 

At  every  time,  however,  even  when  his  work  went  on   Tendency  of 
most  briskly,  the  labours  of  the  Roman  architect  took  the  ***  **«** 

J  ,  .  builders  to 

direction  of  restoring  and  readorning  old  churches  rather  adhere  to 
than  of  erecting  new  ones.  While  the  Transalpine  coun-  the  Ancient 
tries,  except  in  a  few  favoured  spots,  such  as  Provence  and 
part  of  the  Rhineland,  remained  during  several  ages  with 
few  and  rudely  built  stone  churches,  Rome  possessed,  as 
the  inheritance  of  the  earlier  Christian  centuries,  a  pro- 
fusion of  houses  of  worship,  some  of  them  still  unsur- 
passed in  splendour,  and  far  more  than  adequate  to  the 
needs  of  her  diminished  population.  In  repairing  these 
from  time  to  time,  the  original  form  and  style  of  work 
were,  down  to  the  days  of  the  Renaissance,  in  most  cases 
preserved,  while  in  constructing  new  churches,  the  abun- 
dance of  models,  beautiful  in  themselves  and  hallowed  as 
well  by  antiquity  as  by  religious  feeling,  enthralled  the 
invention  of  the  workman,  bound  him  down  to  be  at  best 
a  faithful  imitator,  and  forbade  him  to  deviate  at  pleasure 
from  the  old-established  manner.  Thus  it  befell  that  while 
his  brethren  throughout  the  rest  of  Europe  were  passing 
by  successive  steps  from  the  old  Roman  and  Byzantine 
styles  to  Romanesque,  and  from  Romanesque  to  Pointed, 
the  Roman  architect  scarcely  departed  from  the  plan  and 
arrangements  of  the  primitive  basilica.  This  is  one  chief 
reason  why  there  is  so  little  of  Gothic  work  in  Rome,  so 
little  even  of  Romanesque  like  that  of  Pisa.  What  there  Absence  of 
is  appears  chiefly  in  the  pointed  window,  more  rarely  in  GofAi£in 

.  J  Rome. 

the  arch,  seldom  or  never  in  spire  or  tower  or  column. 
Only  one  of  the  existing  churches  of  Rome  is  Gothic 
throughout,  and  that,  the  Dominican  church  of  Sta.  Maria 
sopra  Minerva,  was  built  by  foreign  monks.  In  some  of 
the  other  churches,  and  especially  in  the  cloisters  of  the 


312 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


Destruction 
and  altera- 
tion of  the  old 
buildings  : 


CHAP.  xvi.  convents,  instances  may  be  observed  of  the  same  style  : 
in  others  slight  traces,  by  accident  or  design  almost 
obliterated.1 

The  mention  of  obliteration  suggests  a  third  cause  of 
the  comparative  want  of  mediaeval  buildings  in  the  city  — 
the  constant  depredations  and  changes  of  which  she  has 
been  the  subject.  Ever  since  the  time  of  Constantine 
Rome  has  been  a  city  of  destruction,  and  Christians  have 
vied  with  pagans,  citizens  with  enemies,  in  urging  on  the 

?y  invaders,  fatal  work.  Her  siege  and  capture  by  the  Norman  Robert 
Wiscard,j  the  ally  of  Hildebrand  against  Henry  the  Fourth, 
was  far  more  ruinous  than  the  attacks  of  the  Goths  or 
Vandals,  and  itself  yields  in  atrocity  to  the  sack  of  Rome 
in  A.D.  1527  by  the  soldiers  of  the  Catholic  king  and  most 
pious  Emperor  Charles  the  Fifth. k  Since  the  days  of  the 
first  barbarian  invasions  the  Romans  have  gone  on  build- 
ing with  materials  taken  from  the  ancient  temples,  theatres, 
law-courts,  baths,  and  villas,  stripping  them  of  their  gor- 
geous casings  of  marble,  pulling  down  their  walls  for  the 
sake  of  the  blocks  of  travertine,  setting  up  their  own  hovels 
on  the  top  or  in  the  midst  of  these  majestic  piles.  Thus 
it  has  been  with  the  memorials  of  paganism :  a  somewhat 
different  cause  has  contributed  to  the  disappearance  of  the 

*  See  Note  XX  at  end. 

J  A  good  deal  of  the  mischief  done  by  Robert  Wiscard,  from  which  the 
parts  of  the  city  lying  beyond  the  Coliseum  towards  the  river  and  St.  John 
Lateran  never  recovered,  is  attributed  to  the  Saracenic  troops  in  his  service. 
Saracen  pirates  are  said  to  have  once  before  sacked  Rome.  Gaiserich  was 
not  a  heathen,  but  he  was  a  furious  Arian,  which,  as  far  as  respect  to  the 
churches  of  the  orthodox  went,  was  nearly  the  same  thing.  The  seven- 
branched  candlestick  and  other  vessels  of  the  Second  Temple,  which  Titus 
had  brought  from  Jerusalem  to  Rome,  are  said  to  have  been  carried  off  by 
the  Vandals  and  lost  on  the  voyage  to  Africa. 

k  We  are  told  that  one  cause  of  the  ferocity  of  the  German  part  of  the 
army  of  Charles  was  their  anger  at  the  ruinous  condition  of  the  imperial 
palace. 


By  the 
Romans  of 
the  Middle 
Ages. 


THE    CITY   OF   ROME   IN   THE   MIDDLE   AGES      313 

mediaeval  churches.     What   pillage,  or  fanaticism,  or  the  CHAP.  xvi. 
wanton  lust  of  destruction  did  in  the  one  case,  the  osten-  By  modem 
tatious  zeal  of  modern  times  has  done  in  the  other.     The  re3torersof 

,  churches. 

era  of  the  final  establishment  of  the  Popes  as  temporal 
sovereigns  of  the  city  is  also  that  of  the  supremacy  of  the 
Renaissance  style  in  architecture.  After  the  time  of 
Nicholas  the  Fifth,  the  pontiff  against  whom,  it  will  be 
remembered,  the  spirit  of  municipal  freedom  made  its 
last  struggle  in  the  conspiracy  of  Porcaro,  everything  was 
built  in  the  neo-classic  style,  and  the  prevailing  enthusiasm 
for  the  antique  produced  a  corresponding  dislike  to  every- 
thing mediaeval,  a  dislike  conspicuous  in  men  like  Julius 
the  Second  and  Leo  the  Tenth,  from  whom  the  grandeur 
of  modern  Rome  may  be  said  to  begin.  Not  long  after 
their  time  the  great  religious  movement  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  while  triumphing  in  the  north  of  Europe,  was  in 
the  south  met  and  overcome  by  a  counter-reformation  in 
the  bosom  of  the  old  church  herself,  and  the  construction 
or  restoration  of  ecclesiastical  buildings  became  again  the 
passion  of  the  devout.1  No  employment,  whether  it  be 
called  a  pleasure  or  a  duty,  could  have  been  better  suited 
to  the  court  and  aristocracy  of  Rome.  They  were  indolent ; 
wealthy,  and  fond  of  displaying  their  wealth  ;  full  of  good 
taste,  and  anxious,  especially  when  advancing  years  had 
chased  away  youth's  pleasures,  to  be  full  of  good  works 
also.  Popes  and  cardinals  and  the  heads  of  the  great 
families  vied  with  one  another  in  building  new  churches 
and  restoring  or  enlarging  those  they  found  till  little  of 
the  old  was  left ;  raising  over  them  huge  cupolas,  substi- 
tuting massive  pilasters  for  the  single-shafted  columns, 
adorning  the  interior  with  a  profusion  of  rare  marbles,  of 

1  Under  the  influence,  partly  of  this  anti-pagan  spirit,  partly  of  his  own 
restless  vanity,  partly  of  a  passion  to  be  doing  something,  Pope  Sixtus  the 
Fifth  destroyed  or  spoiled  not  a  few  monuments  of  antiquity 


314  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xvi.  carving  and  gilding,  of  frescoes  and  altar-pieces  by  the 
best  masters  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries. 
None  but  a  bigoted  mediaevalist  can  refuse  to  acknowledge 
the  warmth  of  tone,  the  repose,  the  stateliness,  of  the 
churches  of  modern  Rome ;  but  even  in  the  midst  of  ad- 
miration the  sated  eye  turns  away  from  the  wealth  of 
ponderous  ornament,  and  longs  for  the  clear  pure  colour, 
the  simple  yet  grand  proportions,  that  give  a  charm  to  the 
buildings  of  an  earlier  age. 

Existing  Few  of  the  ancient  churches  have  escaped  untouched  ; 

relics  of  the    many  have  been  altogether  rebuilt.     There  are  also  some, 

Middle  Ages  however,  in  which  the  modernizers  of  the  sixteenth  and 
subsequent  centuries  have  spared  two  features  of  the  old 
structure,  its  rounded  apse  or  tribune  and  its  bell-tower. 
The  interior  of  the  concave  tribune  is  usually  covered 

The  mosaics,  with  mosaics,  exceedingly  interesting,  both  from  the  ideas 
they  express  and  as  the  only  monuments  of  pictorial  art 
that  remain  to  us  from  the  Dark  Ages.1"  To  speak  of 
them,  however,  as  they  deserve  to  be  spoken  of,  would 
involve  a  digression  for  which  there  is  no  space  here. 
The  campanile  or  bell-tower  is  a  quaint  little  square  brick 
tower,  of  no  great  height,  usually  standing  detached  from 
the  church,  and  having  in  its  topmost,  sometimes  also  in 
its  other  upper  stories,  several  arcade  windows,  divided  by 
tiny  marble  pillars. m  What  with  these  campaniles,  then 
far  more  numerous  than  they  are  now,  and  with  the  huge 
brick  fortresses  of  the  nobles,  towers  must  have  held  in 
the  landscape  of  the  mediaeval  city  very  much  the  part 
which  domes  do  now.  Although  less  imposing,  they  were 
probably  more  picturesque,  the  rather  as  in  the  earlier 
part  of  the  Middle  Ages  the  houses  and  churches,  which 
are  now  mostly  crowded  together  on  the  flat  of  the  Campus 
Martius,  were  scattered  over  the  heights  and  slopes  of  the 

m  See  Note  XXI  at  end. 


THE    CITY    OF   ROME   IN   THE   MIDDLE   AGES      315 

Coelian,  Aventine,  and  Esquiline  hills,  regions  which  were  CHAP.  xvi. 
deserted  after  the  ruin  wrought  by  Robert  Wiscard,  and 
which  remained  almost  unbuilt  upon  till  the  recent  growth 
of  the  city  has  (since  1870)  begun  to  cover  the  Esquiline 
and  part  of  the  Coelian  with  houses."  Modern  Rome  lies 
chiefly  on  the  opposite  or  north-eastern  and  north-western 
sides  of  the  Capitol,  and  the  change  from  the  old  to  the  new 
site  of  the  city  was  not  completed  until  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury. The  Rome  of  Frederick  Barbarossa  and  Arnold  of 
Brescia  lay  mostly  round  the  Capitol  and  between  the  Capitol 
and  the  Tiber  ;  it  included  the  old  suburb  of  Trastevere,  but 
not  the  region  near  St.  Peter's,  which  constituted  the  (then 
still  separate)  Leonine  city.  In  A.D.  1536,  in  anticipation 
of  the  entry  of  Charles  the  Fifth,  the  rebuilding  of  the 
Capitol  (afterwards  carried  on  by  Michael  Angelo)  was 
begun  upon  foundations  said  to  have  been  laid  by  the  first 
Tarquin ;  and  the  palace  of  the  Senator,  the  greatest 
municipal  edifice  of  Rome,  which  had  hitherto  looked 
towards  the  Forum  and  the  Coliseum,  was  made  to  front 
in  the  direction  of  St.  Peter's  and  the  modern  town,  which 
had  then  already  begun  to  spread  out  over  the  old  Campus 
Martius  and  the  slopes  of  the  Quirinal. 

The  Rome  of  to-day  is  no  more  like  the  city  of  Rienzo   changed 
than   she   is   to   the  city  of   Trajan;  just  as  the  Roman  asPe<tofth' 
church  of  the  twentieth  century  differs  profoundly,  com- 
plete  as  her   historical   continuity  may  appear,  from  the 
church  of  Hildebrand.     But  among  all  their  changes,  both 
church  and   city  have   kept   themselves  wonderfully  free 
from   the   intrusion   of  foreign,    or   at  least  of  Teutonic, 

n  The  Palatine  hill  seems  to  have  been  then,  as  it  is  for  the  most  part  now, 
a  waste  of  stupendous  ruins.  In  the  great  imperial  palace  upon  its  northern 
and  eastern  sides  an  official  of  the  Eastern  court  had  his  residence  in  the 
beginning  of  the  eighth  century.  In  the  time  of  Charles  the  Great,  some 
seventy  years  later,  this  palace  was  no  longer  habitable. 


316  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xvi.  elements,  and  have  faithfully  preserved  at  all  times  some- 
Anaiogy  thing  of  an  old  Roman  character.  Latin  Christianity  in- 
betweenher  herited  from  the  imperial  system  of  old  that  firmly  knit 

architecture  ,    *   .  J 

and  her  civil   yet    flexible   organization,    which   was    one   of   the    grand 
andeccie-       secrets   of   its  power.     The  great    men  whom   mediaeval 
Sltitution°'      Rome   gave  to  or   trained  up  for   the  Papacy  were,  like 
their   predecessors    of   the  ancient  world,  administrators, 
legislators,  statesmen  ;  seldom  enthusiasts  themselves,  but 
perfectly  understanding   how   to    use   and   guide  the  en- 
thusiasm of  others  —  of  the  French  and  German  crusaders, 
of  such  men  as  Francis  of  Assisi  and  Dominic  and  Ignatius. 
Between  Catholicism  in  Italy  and  Catholicism  in  Germany 
or  England  there  was  always,  as  there  is  still,  a  perceptible 
difference.      So  also,  if  the  analogy  be  not  too  fanciful, 
Preservation    was  it  with  Rome  the  city.     Socially  she  seemed  always 
of  an  antique  Drifting  towards  feudalism  :  yet  she  never  fell  into  its  grasp. 

character  in  ° 

loth.  Materially,    her   architecture  was   at    one    time   consider- 

ably influenced  by  Pointed  forms,  yet  Gothic  never  became, 
as  in  the  rest  of  Europe,  the  dominant  style.  It  approached 
Rome  late,  and  departed  from  her  early,  so  that  we  scarcely 
notice  its  presence,  and  seem  to  pass  almost  without  a 
break  from  the  old  Romanesque0  to  the  new  Graeco- 
Roman  of  the  Renaissance.  Thus  regarded,  the  history  of 
the  city,  both  in  her  political  fortunes  and  in  her  buildings, 
is  seen  to  be  intimately  connected  with  that  of  the  Holy 
Empire  itself.  The  Empire  in  its  title  and  its  pretensions 
expressed  the  idea  of  the  permanence  of  the  institutions  of 
the  ancient  world;  Rome  the  city  had,  in  externals  at 
least,  carefully  preserved  their  traditions  :  the  names  of 
her  magistracies,  the  character  of  her  buildings,  all  spoke 
of  antiquity,  and  gave  it  a  strange  and  shadowy  life  in  the 
midst  of  new  races  and  new  forms  of  faith. 

Based  on  the  feeling  of  the  unity  of  mankind,  the  Empire 

0  Such  as  we  see  it  in  the  later  and  lesser  churches  of  basilica  form. 


THE   CITY   OF   ROME    IN   THE   MIDDLE   AGES      317 

was  a  perpetuation  of  the  Roman  dominion  into  which  the  CHAP.  xvi. 
old  nationalities  had  been  absorbed,  with  the  addition  of  the  Relation  of 
Christian  element  which  had  created  a  new  nationality  that  theci^and 

the  Empire, 

was  also  universal.  By  the  extension  of  her  citizenship  to 
all  her  subjects  heathen  Rome  had  become  the  common 
home,  and,  figuratively,  even  the  local  dwelling-place  of  the 
civilized  races  of  man.  By  the  theology  of  the  time 
Christian  Rome  had  been  made  the  mystical  type  of 
humanity,  the  one  flock  of  the  faithful  scattered  over  the 
whole  earth,  the  holy  city  whither,  as  to  the  temple  on 
Moriah,  all  the  Israel  of  God  should  come  up  to  worship. 
She  was  not  merely  an  image  of  the  mighty  world,  she  was 
the  mighty  world  itself  in  miniature.  The  pastor  of  her 
local  church  is  also  the  universal  bishop  ;  the  seven  suffra- 
gan bishops  who  consecrate  him  are  overseers  of  petty  sees 
in  Ostia,  Antium,  and  the  like,  towns  lying  close  round 
Rome  :  the  cardinal  priests  and  deacons  who  join  these 
seven  in  electing  him  derive  their  title  to  be  princes  of  the 
Church,  the  supreme  spiritual  council  of  the  Christian 
world,  from  the  incumbency  of  a  parochial  cure  within  the 
precincts  of  the  city.  Similarly,  her  ruler,  the  Emperor, 
is  ruler  of  mankind  ;  he  is  deemed  to  be  chosen  by  the  ac- 
clamations of  her  people : p  he  must  be  duly  crowned  in 
one  of  her  basilicas.  She  is,  like  Jerusalem  of  old,  the 
mother  of  us  all. 

There   is  yet  another  way  in  which  the  record  of  the 

P  The  appearance  on  the  stage  of  the  seven  Germanic  electors  was  a  result 
of  the  confusion  of  the  German  kingdom  with  the  Roman  Empire,  and  in 
strictness  they  ought  to  have  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  Roman  crown  at  all. 
The  right  to  bestow  it  could  only  —  on  principle  —  belong  to  some  Roman 
authority,  and  those  who  felt  the  difficulty  were  driven  to  suppose  a  formal 
cession  of  their  privilege  by  the  Roman  people  to  the  seven  electors.  See 
p.  235,  supra  ;  and  cf.  Matthew  Villani  (iv.  77),  '  II  popolo  Romano,  non  da 
se,  ma  la  chiesa  per  lui,  concedette  la  elezione  degli  Imperadori  a  sette  prin- 
cipi  della  Magna.' 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


Extinction 
of  the 
Florentine 
republic, 
A.D.  1530. 


CHAP.  xvi.  domestic  contests  of  Rome  throws  light  upon  the  history 
of  the  Empire.  From  the  eleventh  century  to  the  fifteenth 
her  citizens  did  not  cease  to  demand  in  the  name  of  the 
old  republic  their  freedom  from  the  tyranny  of  the  nobles 
and  the  Pope,  and  their  right  to  rule  over  the  world  at 
large.  These  efforts  —  selfish  and  fantastic  we  may  call 
them,  yet  men  like  Petrarch  did  not  disdain  to  them 
their  sympathy  —  issued  from  the  same  theories  and  were 
directed  to  the  same  ends  as  those  which  inspired  Otto 
the  Third  and  Frederick  Barbarossa  and  Dante  himself. 
They  witness  to  the  same  incapacity  to  form  any  ideal 
for  the  future  except  a  revival  of  the  past ;  the  same  belief 
that  one  universal  state  is  both  desirable  and  possible,  but 
possible  only  through  the  means  of  Rome :  the  same 
refusal  to  admit  that  a  right  which  has  once  existed  can 
ever  be  extinguished.  In  the  days  of  the  Renaissance 
these  notions  were  passing  silently  away :  the  succeeding 
century  brought  with  it  misfortunes  that  broke  the  spirit  of 
the  nation.  Italy  was  the  battlefield  of  Europe  :  her  wealth 
became  the  prey  of  a  rapacious  soldiery :  Florence,  the 
noblest  of  her  republics,  was  conquered  by  an  unfeeling 
Emperor,  and  handed  over  to  a  despot  as  a  pledge  of  amity 
to  a  selfish  Medicean  Pope.  When  the  hope  of  indepen- 
dence had  been  lost,  the  people  turned  away  from  politics 
to  live  for  art  and  literature,  and  found,  before  many  gen- 
erations had  passed,  how  little  such  devotion  could  com- 
pensate for  the  departure  of  a  national  spirit,  and  of  the 
activity  of  civic  life.  A  century  after  the  golden  days  of 
Ariosto  and  Raphael,  Italian  literature  had  become  frigid 
and  affected,  while  Italian  art  was  dying  of  mannerism. 

At  length,  after  long  ages  of  sloth,  the  stagnant  waters 
were  troubled.  The  Romans,  who  had  lived  in  listless  con- 
tentment under  the  paternal  sway  of  the  Popes,  received 
new  ideas  from  the  advent  of  the  revolutionary  armies  of 


THE   CITY   OF   ROME   IN   THE   MIDDLE  AGES      319 

France,  and  found  the  papal  system,  since  its  re-establish-  CHAP.  xvi. 
ment  in  1815  as  an  ecclesiastical  bureaucracy,  less  tolerable  Feelings  of 
than  it  had  been  of  yore.     When  the  rest  of  Italy  had  been  the  modern 

J  J  Italians 

delivered  from  the  rule  of  Hapsburgs  and  Bourbons,  the  towards 
name  of  Rome  became  again  a  rallying-cry  for  the  patriots  Rome. 
of  Italy,  but  in  a  sense  most  unlike  the  old  one.  The  con- 
temporaries of  Arnold  and  Rienzo  desired  freedom  as  a 
step  to  universal  domination  :  their  descendants,  inspired 
by  national  patriotism  as  well  as  by  civic  pride,  more  wisely 
sought  to  be  the  capital  of  the  Italian  kingdom.  Dante 
prayed  for  a  monarchy  of  the  world,  a  reign  of  peace  and 
Christian  brotherhood :  those  who,  five  centuries  later, 
invoked  his  name  as  the  earliest  prophet  of  their  creed  strove 
after  an  idea  that  never  crossed  his  mind  —  the  gathering 
of  all  Italians  into  a  national  state.  Yet  this  he  and  they 
had  in  common,  —  they  and  he  alike  desired  to  exclude 
the  Papacy  from  the  sphere  of  secular  government. 

One  who  watched  the  long  struggle  of  the  Italians  to 
make  Rome  the  free  capital  of  a  united  nation,  from  the 
days  of  the  Mazzinian  triumvirate  of  1849  to  tne  happier 
day  when  the  army  of  Victor  Emmanuel  passed  through 
the  Porta  Pia,  may  be  permitted  to  recall  the  sentiments 
of  that  time,  now  grown  dim  to  the  new  generation. 

Dull  common-sense  politicians  in  other  countries  did 
not  then  understand  this  passion  for  Rome  as  a  capital, 
and  used  to  lecture  the  Italians  on  their  flightiness.  The 
Italian  patriots  did  not  themselves  argue  or  pretend  that 
the  banks  of  the  Tiber  were  a  suitable  site  for  a  capital. 
They  admitted,  in  the  days  before  1870  to  which  I  am 
referring,  that  Rome  was  lonely,  unhealthy,  and  in  a  bad 
strategical  position ;  that  she  had  no  particular  facilities 
for  trade ;  that  her  people  were  less  thrifty  and  industrious 
than  the  Tuscans  or  the  Piedmontese.  Nevertheless  all 
Italy  cried  with  one  voice  for  Rome,  believing  that  her 


320  THE   HOLY  ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xvi.  national  life  could  never  thrill  with  a  strong  and  steady 
pulsation  till  the  ancient  capital  had  become  the  nation's 
heart.  They  felt  that  it  was  owing  to  Rome  —  Rome 
pagan  as  well  as  Christian  —  that  they  had  once  played  so 
grand  a  part  in  the  drama  of  European  history,  and  that 
the  recollections  of  those  glorious  days  had  done  much  to 
create  the  passion  for  national  unity.  This  enthusiasm 
for  a  famous  name  was  substantially  the  same  feeling  as 
that  which  created  and  hallowed  the  Holy  Empire  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  The  events  which  on  both  sides  of  the 
Atlantic  befell  during  the  momentous  forty  years  between 
1830  and  1870  proved  that  men  were  not  then,  any  more 
than  they  had  ever  been  before,  chiefly  governed  by  calcu- 
lations of  material  profit  and  loss.  Sentiments,  fancies, 
theories,  retained  their  power;  the  spirit  of  poetry  had 
not  wholly  passed  away  from  politics.  Strange,  therefore, 
as  seems  to  us  the  worship  paid  to  the  name  of  mediaeval 
Rome  by  those  who  saw  the  sins  and  the  misery  of  her 
people,  it  can  hardly  have  been  an  intenser  feeling  than 
was  the  imaginative  reverence  wherewith  the  patriots  of 
Italy  during  those  years  of  struggle  looked  on  the  city 
whence,  as  from  a  fountain,  all  the  streams  of  their 
national  life  had  sprung,  and  in  which,  as  in  an  ocean, 
they  were  all  again  to  mingle. 


CHAPTER   XVII 

THE   EAST   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

DURING  the  Middle  Ages,  Western  statesmen  and 
churchmen,  Western  thinkers  and  writers,  took  little  note 
of  the  Eastern  Empire  which  stubbornly  held  its  ground 
at  Constantinople  down  to  A.D.  1453.  Its  claim  to  repre- 
sent the  ancient  dominion  of  Rome  was  practically 
ignored.  Its  splendid  efforts  in  the  defence  of  civiliza- 
tion against  the  fierce  tribes  of  the  North,  and  the  still 
more  formidable  Musulmans  of  the  East,  received  slight 
recognition,  and  scarcely  any  support.  Even  in  later 
times  the  part  played  by  the  people  and  rulers  of  New 
Rome  was  inadequately  appreciated,  and  it  is  only  in  our 
own  days  that  history  has  begun  to  atone  for  this  long 
neglect.* 

The  two  imperial  lines,  which  the  revolt  of  Italy  and 
the  coronation  of  Charles  the  Great  in  A.D.  800  substituted 
for  the  one  Roman  Emperor  whom  Christian  doctrine 
had  required  and  continued  to  require,  were,  after  that 
fateful  year,  always  rivals  and  usually  unfriendly  rivals. 

*  Gibbon  does  much  less  than  justice  to  them  :  and  the  first  modern  his- 
torian who  set  them  in  a  fuller  and  fairer  light  was  the  late  Mr.  Finlay.  Le 
Beau,  in  his  Histoire  du  Bas-Empire,  gave  a  resume  of  East  Roman  history 
useful  in  its  day,  and  among  more  recent  works  of  value  are  those  of  Karl 
Hopf  (in  Ersch  and  Gruber,  vols.  85  and  86),  and  of  Hertzberg  {Geschichte 
tier  Byzantiner),  with  the  excellent  History  of  the  Later  Roman  Empire  of 
J.  B.  Bury. 

A  full  bibliography  will  be  found  in  the  learned  and  luminous  Geschichte 
der  byzantinischcn  Litteratur  of  K.  Krumbacher,  which  is  itself  of  great  service 
for  a  comprehension  of  Byzantine  history  generally. 
Y  321 


322 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  XVII. 


Slight  e/ect 
on  the  East 
Roman 
Empire  of 
the  coro- 
nation of 
Charles  the 
Great. 


But  their  direct  relations  either  of  negotiation  or  of  armed 
hostility  were  infrequent.  Each  went  its  own  way.  Each 
had  foes  of  its  own  to  confront.  Each  affected  the  other 
much  less  than  might  have  been  expected,  when  it  is 
remembered  that  each  maintained  its  claim  to  be  the 
heir  of  Rome,  and  to  perpetuate  the  political  and  religious 
traditions  of  the  early  Christian  Emperors.  Yet  few  as 
the  points  of  contact  were,  the  history  of  the  East  Roman 
is  a  necessary  complement  to  that  of  the  West  Roman 
Empire,  for  the  course  of  events  in  each  throws  an  in- 
structive light  upon  the  course  of  events  in  the  other. 
As  the  divergences  are  worth  noting,  so  too  are  the  re- 
semblances. Both  Empires  rested  upon  the  memories 
of  Rome.  Both  stood  in  a  peculiar  relation  to  the  Chris- 
tian Church.  Both  had  to  deal  with  the  instreaming  races 
of  the  North.  But  these  conditions  of  life  told  differently 
upon  the  one  and  upon  the  other,  and  gave  a  different 
direction  to  their  respective  fortunes. 

To  sketch,  even  in  outline,  the  long  and  chequered  and 
romantic  history  of  the  Eastern  Empire  would  be  alto- 
gether outside  the  scope  of  this  book.  But  from  among 
the  salient  features  that  mark  its  annals  I  may  single  out 
for  comment  a  few  which  specially  serve  to  illustrate  the 
parallel  or  divergent  history  of  the  West. 

It  has  already  been  remarked  (see  p.  26  and  p.  62, 
supra}  that  neither  the  extinction  of  the  line  of  Emperors 
who  reigned  in  the  West  down  to  A.D.  476,  nor  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  second  imperial  line  at  Old  Rome  by  the 
coronation  of  Charles  the  Great  in  A.D.  800,  was  an  event 
of  critical  significance  in  the  history  of  the  East  Roman 
realm.  By  the  event  of  A.D.  476  the  Eastern  monarch 
became  the  sole  legal  representative  of  Roman  claims, 
claims  still  admitted  in  theory,  to  the  lordship  of  the 
whole  Western  world.  But  the  only  practical  result  of 


THE   EAST  ROMAN   EMPIRE  323 

this  nominally  enlarged  authority  was  to  induce,  fifty  years  CHAP.XVII. 
afterwards,  Justinian's  reconquest  of  North  Africa,  Sicily, 
Sardinia,  and  Italy,  territories  which  added  nothing  to 
the  effective  strength  of  the  Empire,  and  which  were  suc- 
cessively lost,  Africa  in  the  seventh,  Sicily  and  Sardinia 
in  the  ninth,  Italy  partly  in  the  eighth  and  partly  in  the 
eleventh  century.  By  the  event  of  A.D.  800  the  right  to 
represent  Rome,  carrying  with  it  the  headship  of  the 
whole  Christian  commonwealth,  was  withdrawn  from  the 
Eastern  line,  so  far  as  the  Roman  Church  and  the  Franks 
could  withdraw  it,  so  that  such  titular  sovereignty,  by  this 
time  shadowy,  as  still  remained  to  the  Roman  Emperor 
over  the  world  at  large,  became  henceforth  vested  in 
those  Western  potentates,  first  Prankish,  then  Italian, 
ultimately  German,  who  could  obtain  it  from  the  hands  of 
the  Pope,  or  (in  later  days)  by  the  election  of  the  German 
princes.  But  this  effort  to  transfer  the  claim  to  universal 
monarchy  did  not  affect  the  legal  rights  of  the  Eastern 
sovereign  in  the  countries  which  actually  obeyed  him, 
and -affected  but  slightly  the  position  he  held  towards 
the  states  that  bordered  on  his  own.  Though  he  had 
lost  Rome  he  continued  to  hold  Southern  Italy;  nor  did 
any  of  his  nearer  provinces  in  Thrace,  or  Greece,  or  Asia 
shew  any  signs  of  turning  to  his  new  Teutonic  rivals.  To 
the  Westerns  (other  than  the  Southern  Italians)  he  was 
already  merely  a  name ;  so  none  of  their  peoples  or  cities, 
except  Venice,  thought  of  cleaving  to  him.  To  the  East- 
erns he  had  been,  and  still  remained,  not  only  the  national 
monarch  of  whom  they  were  proud,  but  the  legitimate 
heir  of  Old  Rome ;  for  the  coronation  of  Charles  in  which 
the  Pope,  the  citizens  of  Old  Rome,  and  the  Franks  had 
joined,  was  in  their  eyes  an  outrageous  usurpation.  Thus 
the  Eastern  Empire  was,  for  practical  purposes,  no  more 
weakened  by  the  incoming  of  Charles,  and  afterwards  of 


324 


THE   HOLY    ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  XVII. 


Constant 
struggles  of 
the  Eastern 
Empire  : 


against  the 

Northern 

barbarians, 


A.D.  619  and 
626. 


Otto  the  Great,  than  it  had  been  strengthened  by  the  dis- 
appearance of  Romulus  Augustulus  in  A.D.  476.  We  may 
therefore  cast  our  glance  over  its  history  as  a  whole, 
covering  a  thousand  years  from  the  accession  of  Arcadius 
in  A.D.  395  —  the  point  at  which  the  real  political  separa- 
tion of  East  and  West  begins  —  to  the  taking  of  Constan- 
tinople by  Mohammed  the  Second  in  A.D.  1453. 

A  long  history !  longer  than  that  of  any  European 
monarchy,  or  indeed  of  any  monarchy  save  those  of  China 
and  Japan  ;  and  a  history  which  amazes  us  by  the  power 
of  recovery  and  rejuvenescence  which  this  singular  state 
displays.  From  the  time  of  Justinian  onwards,  it  had  to 
support,  against  formidable  enemies  on  .  either  side,  a 
veritable  and  unending  struggle  for  life,  longer  and  more 
perilous  than  the  struggle  which  in  earlier  days  Rome  had 
for  centuries  maintained  against  the  Samnites,  against 
Carthage,  and  against  the  Italian  allies. 

On  the  north  swarms  of  fierce  savages  poured  down  in 
succession  upon  it  from  the  wilds  of  Scythia.  First,  about 
the  beginning  of  the  sixth  century,  came  various  Slavonic 
tribes.  Then  the  Avars,  established  along  the  Theiss  and 
the  Middle  Danube,  began  a  long  series  of  desolating  raids, 
and  twice  appeared  before  Constantinople.  Then,  early 
in  the  seventh  century,  the  Bulgarians,  a  Finnish  people, 
moved  out  of  their  old  seats  on  the  Volga  and  the  Kama, 
occupied  the  region  which  now  bears  their  name,  laid  waste 
and  ultimately  settled  in  the  adjoining  parts  of  Thrace 
(where  they  became  blent  with,  and  adopted  the  speech 
of  the  Slavic  tribes),  and  threatened  Constantinople  itself. 
Further  to  the  north-east,  the  Petchenegs,  also  a  Finnic  or 
Tatar  race,  having  established  themselves  in  the  steppes 
of  the  Dnieper  and  the  Don,  frequently  attacked  the 
frontiers ;  and  somewhat  later,  the  Russians  (perhaps  led 
by  chieftains  of  Scandinavian  stock),  descending  the 


THE   EAST   ROMAN   EMPIRE  325 

Dnieper  in  their  light  boats  and  crossing  the  Euxine,  were  CHAP.XVII. 
twice  repelled  with  difficulty  from  the  walls  of  the  capital. 
Of  all  these  enemies  the  Bulgarians  were  the  most  dan- 
gerous because  the  nearest.  The  Emperor  Basil  II  reduced 
them  in  the  tenth  century  to  nominal  subjection,  but 
they  regained  their  freedom  within  less  than  a  century, 
and  continued  to  threaten  the  Empire  until  they  fell 
before  the  rising  power  of  the  Ottoman  Turks.  While  the 
greater  part  of  Thrace  had  thus  been  overspread  by  the 
Bulgarians,  the  North-west  provinces  had  passed  to 
the  Slavs,  the  power  of  whose  leading  kingdom  culminated 
in  the  reign  of  the  Servian  Tsar  Stephen  Dushan  in  the 
thirteenth  century.  Thus,  speaking  broadly,  it  may  be 
said  that,  from  the  middle  of  the  sixth  century  onwards, 
the  Empire  was  constantly  at  war  with  these  Northern 
barbarians,  and  often  seemed  on  the  point  of  succumbing 
to  their  attacks. 

Meantime  it  had  to  resist  still  more  terrible  foes  advanc-  against  the 
ing  from  the  south.     The  first  wave  of  Arab  invasion  tore  Mu^lmM 

Arabs  and 

away  Syria  and  Egypt,  rolled  over  Asia  Minor,  and  carried   Turks. 
a  Musulman  host  to  the  shores  of  the  Bosphorus  (A.D.  673). 
After  many  long  and  fierce  struggles  the  whole  of  Asia 
Minor  was  recovered,  and  in  the  end  of  the  tenth  and 
beginning  of  the  eleventh  century  even  Northern  Syria 
(except  Tyre  and   Damascus)  and    Armenia  were  recon- 
quered by  John  Tzimiskes  and  Basil  II.     But  in  the  middle 
of  the  eleventh  the  rise  of  the  Seljukian  Turks  drove  back 
the  Romans  from  Syria,  and  by  degrees  forced  them  out 
of  the  eastern  and  central  parts  of  Asia  Minor.     Armenia  Battle  of 
was  lost  for  ever,  and  in   the  thirteenth    century  only  a  Man*ikert> 
strip  of  country  along  the  Black  Sea  and  the  Sea  of  Mar- 
mora remained  to  Christianity.     The  ruin  of  Central  and 
Southern   Asia  Minor,   in   earlier  ages    one    of   the  most 
flourishing  and  populous  regions  of  the  world,  dates  from 


326 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


Attack  of  the 
^™' 


Latin  Em- 
perors,  A.D. 
1204-1261. 


CHAP.  xvii.  the  devastating  border  wars  in  which  Turks  and  Romans 
alternately  harried  it. 

Yet  neither  the  Bulgarians,  nor  the  Arabs,  nor  the 
Seljukian  sultans  inflicted  so  deadly  a  blow  on  the  Empire 
as  did  those  from  whom  enmity  ought  least  of  all  to  have 
been  expected.  The  Normans,  after  winning  South  Italy, 
attacked  the  Eastern  Roman  territories  in  Epirus,  and 
were  with  difficulty  repelled  by  Manual  Comnenus.  In 
A.D.  1204  a  powerful  fleet  of  Latin  Christians,  French, 
German,  and  Venetian,  setting  out  on  the  Fourth  Crusade, 
turned  aside  from  the  professed  aim  of  their  expedition, 
besieged  and  took  Constantinople,  and  set  up  a  short-lived 
line  of  Latin  Emperors  there.  From  this  catastrophe 

tke  jrmpire  never  really  recovered.     After  the  fall  of  the 

* 

Latin  dynasty  a  vigorous  prince  of  East  Roman  stock  and 
Orthodox  faith,  already  reigning  at  Nicaea,  regained  the 
throne,  and  his  successors,  ruling  mere  fragments  of  the 
old  territory  in  Europe  and  Asia,  held  the  throne  till 
the  Ottoman  Turks,  by  that  time  masters  of  the  whole 
of  its  dominions  on  the  European  continent,  captured  the 
city  in  1453. 

The  record  of  these  constant  wars  against  two  sets  of 
enemies  is  a  splendid  record,  for,  sometimes  on  one  side 
and  sometimes  on  the  other,  the  fortunes  of  the  East 
Romans  seemed  often  desperate.  The  admiration  which 
their  resistance  excites  becomes  even  greater  when  we 
reflect  that  the  Empire  had  no  natural  frontiers  easily 
defensible  in  war,  and  that  it  was  frequently  troubled  by 
the  struggles  of  rival  aspirants  for  the  crown.  The  causes 
of  the  strength  it  shewed  for  defence,  and  the  source  of 
the  vitality  which  enabled  it  so  often  to  recover  from 
wounds  apparently  deadly,  deserve  to  be  examined. 

High  among  those  causes  is  to  be  placed  the  perpetua- 
tion of  the  name  and  traditions  of  the  ancient  Roman 


THE   EAST   ROMAN   EMPIRE  327 

power.     The  thought  that  they  were  Romans,  the  heirs  CHAP.XVII. 
and  representatives  of  the  great   ruling  race  which   had    Causes  of 
brought  the  whole  world  under  its   sway,  was   the   life-  thelons 

,      ,  .  ,  ,  ,         .  ,  ,     i         resistance 

spring   of  this   strangely  mixed   people,    in   whose   veins  Ofthe 

there  flowed   scarcely   any   Italian   blood,   and   very   few  Eastern 
of  whom  could  speak  the  Roman  tongue.     The  Western     mftr' 

peoples  called  them  Greeks,  as  modern  Europe  has  been  -  „ 

of  Rome. 

wont  to  do.  But  as  they  were  not  Greeks  in  race,  for 
the  descendants  of  the  Greek  colonies  on  the  Aegean 
and  the  Propontis  can  have  contributed  but  a  slight 
infusion  of  Greek  blood,  so  neither,  though  their  art  and 
letters  were  Hellenistic,  did  they  shew  many  of  the  dis- 
tinctive qualities  which  had  marked  the  Greeks  of  the 
classical  ages.  Still  less  were  they  Romans  by  stock  or 
by  character,  though  they  called  themselves,  and  were 
called  throughout  the  East,  by  that  title,  perpetuated 
in  the  names  Roum  and  Roumelia  given  to  their  terri- 
tories, and  the  name  Romaic  used  to  describe  their  lan- 
guage. But  the  old  name  and  the  old  institutions,  changed 
indeed  in  the  course  of  ages,  but  changed  by  no  sudden 
break,  gave  them  a  sense  of  superiority  over  all  other 
peoples,  a  pride  and  self-confidence  which  supported  them 
in  many  a  dark  hour.  This  made  them  a  nation,  and 
indeed  a  nation  which,  though  local  diversities  and  local 
forms  of  speech  survived,  was  for  defensive  purposes 
closely  welded  together.  Though  we  hear  of  many  insur- 
rections in  the  capital,  many  contests  for  the  crown  be- 
tween •  rival  claimants,  there  is  scarcely  ever  a  racial  or 
provincial  revolt,  seldom  any  attempt  of  a  magnate  to  set 
himself  up  as  ruler  of  an  independent  realm.  The  Empire 
stood  one  and  indivisible  against  all  its  foes.  This  senti- 
ment of  an  imperial  nationality,  no  longer  universal,  but 
national  in  the  strictest  sense,  because  bound  into  one  not 
only  by  political  ties,  but  also  by  those  of  language,  ideas, 


328 


THE   HOLY    ROMAN    EMPIRE 


Constanti- 
nople. 


CHAP.  xvii.  and  manners,b  became  further  intensified  by  the  existence 
strength  of  of  one  great  centre  of  population.  Constantinople  gave 
strength  to  the  Empire,  through  its  incomparable  position, 
all  but  impregnable  to  attack.  It  was  an  admirable  centre 
for  naval  operations,  since  it  touched  both  the  Mediter- 
ranean and  the  Euxine,  and  could  use  the  sea  for  expedi- 
tions to  the  distant  points  that  were  threatened.  It  was 
also  a  wonderful  reservoir  of  national  energy.  Though 
the  East  Roman  armies  were  mainly  composed  of  the 
barbarian  or  semi-barbarian  subjects  who  dwelt  in  the 
frontier  provinces,  the  teeming  population  and  the  riches 
of  the  city  intensified  the  spirit  and  pride  of  the  whole 
people,  and  gave  the  Empire  a  heart  whose  pulsations  were 
felt  to  the  furthest  extremities.  In  the  tenth  century, 
before  the  rise  of  the  great  Italian  republics,  Constan- 
tinople stood  practically  alone  in  the  Christian  world  as  a 
centre  of  commerce,  wealth,  and  splendour,  with  a  thou- 
sand inhabitants  for  every  hundred  that  could  be  found  in 
Old  Rome  or  in  the  largest  cities  of  Germany  or  Gaul.c 
And  Constantinople  was  also  the  centre  of  a  well  ordered 
administration  such  as  existed  nowhere  else  in  the  world. 
That  highly  organized  civil  service  which  ancient  Rome 
had  built  up  from  the  days  of  Julius  Caesar  to  those  of 
Diocletian  had  been  preserved  in  full  efficiency  down  into 
the  twelfth  century,  in  the  end  of  and  after  which  the 
signs  of  decay  became  more  evident. d  It  powerfully  con- 
tributed to  hold  the  provinces  together,  to  provide  the 
government,  always  pressed  by  costly  wars,  with  a  revenue, 

b  Although  many  dissimilarities  continued  to  subsist  in  the  outlying  pro- 
vinces, and  even  in  the  highlands  of  Greece. 

c  The  Norse  Sagas  call  it  Micklegarth  (the  Great  City). 

d  By  that  time  maritime  commerce  had  largely  passed  into  the  hands  of 
the  Italian  cities,  especially  Genoa,  industry  had  begun  to  decline,  and  the 
rural  population  were  impoverished.  The  border  wars  and  raids  of  the  twelfth 
and  thirteenth  centuries  desolated  Asia  Minor,  which  has  never  recovered. 


The  civil 
adminis- 
tration. 


THE   EAST   ROMAN   EMPIRE  329 

and  to  maintain  the  public  order  and  public  confidence  CHAP.XVU 
which  enable  industry  and  commerce  to  flourish.  One 
may  almost  say  that,  as  Constantinople  was  the  heart,  so 
the  civil  service  supplied  the  nerves  and  sinews  of  the 
monarchy.  In  this  respect  the  East  Roman  Empire  stood 
contrasted  with  its  Romano-Germanic  sister.  Charles  the 
Great  attempted  to  govern  his  wide  dominions  by  imperial 
officers  sent  forth  to  carry  out  his  orders  and  correct  and 
control  the  action  of  the  local  magnates.  But  he  had 
nothing  that  could  be  called  an  administrative  system. 
Neither  had  Otto  the  Great  or  his  Saxon,  Franconian,  or 
Swabian  successors.  The  only  permanent  organization 
their  realm  possessed  was  the  intricate  and  cumbrous 
machinery  of  feudalism,  hardly  better  fitted  for  war  than  it 
was  for  advancement  in  the  arts  of  peaceful  life.  And 
none  of  the  Teutonic  monarchs  had  a  city  which  could  be 
called  in  any  true  sense  a  capital.  Least  of  all  did  they 
find  such  a  centre  in  Rome,  the  most  disaffected  spot  in 
their  dominions. 

As  an  efficient  civil  administration  helped  to  maintain 
the  internal  prosperity  of  the  Empire,  and  enabled  it  to 
bear  the  cost  of  war,  so  the  excellence  of  its  military 
arrangements  gave  it  strength  for  defence.  The  army  was 
skilfully  organized  and  carefully  drilled  :  it  had  a  system  of 
scientific  tactics :  it  drew  recruits  from  outside  the  Empire 
as  well  as  from  the  more  warlike  of  the  races  that  dwelt 
within.  The  fleet,  efficiently  appointed  and  trained,  re- 
mained for  a  long  time,  perhaps  down  to  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury, superior  to  any  hostile  navy  it  had  to  encounter. 
And  the  Easterns  had  at  their  disposal  an  extremely  im- 
portant implement  of  warfare  in  that  mysterious  '  Romaic  ' 
or  '  Greek  '  Fire  or  '  Sea  Fire  '  invented  by  Kallinikus  in 
the  seventh  century  —  a  liquid  which  they  cast  upon  the 
vessels  of  an  enemy,  and  which  burnt  or  exploded  where  it 


330 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


Despotic 
govern- 
ment of  the 
Empire. 


CHAP.  xvii.  fell.     It  often  secured  to  them  a  victory,  or  covered  them 
in  retreat.6 

The  East  Roman  monarchy  was  a  pure  despotism. 
After  the  accession  of  Claudius  Caesar,  the  third  suc- 
cessor of  Augustus,  no  one  seems  ever  to  have  thought 
either  of  restoring  the  shattered  republican  constitution  or 
of  creating  any  monarchical  constitution  whatever,  that  is 
to  say,  any  set  of  institutions  designed  to  associate  the 
people  with  the  conduct  of  government,  or  to  determine 
the  succession  to  the  throne,  or  to  limit  the  authority  of 
its  occupant.  In  the  ancient  world  monarchy  had  come  to 
mean  autocracy.  For  more  than  a  thousand  years  the 
very  idea  of  a  regular  constitution,  in  the  Greek  sense  or 
old  Roman  sense,  as  well  as  in  that  mediaeval  sense  which 
re-emerged  with  the  rise  of  the  Italian  republics  in  the 
twelfth  century,  seemed  to  have  utterly  vanished.  It  was 
assumed  that  the  Emperor  must  be  an  irresponsible  ruler. 
It  was  left  to  chance  to  determine  who  should  be  Emperor. 
A  body  called  the  Senate  continued  to  exist,  as  it  con- 
tinued to  exist  at  Old  Rome,  and  it  submissively  recog- 
nized the  person  who  had  already  made  himself  master  of 
the  city.  But  the  crown  was  the  price  of  the  strongest. 
No  body  of  persons  had  an  effective  legal  right  to  choose 
its  wearer.  A  palace  intrigue,  the  favour  of  a  queen,  a 
rising  in  the  streets,  the  caprice  of  an  army  returning  from 
the  field,  threw  it  into  the  hands  of  some  aspirant  perhaps 
hitherto  unknown  :  and  he  became  at  once  a  sort  of  God 
upon  earth,  sometimes  entitled  '  Equal  to  the  Apostles,' f 
approached  with  slavish  prostrations,  sole  legislator  and 

e  See  Bury,  History  of  Later  Roman  Empire,  vol.  ii.  p.  319,  for  a  receipt  for 
the  making  of  it  given  by  Marcus  Graecus  in  the  tenth  century.  Some  of  the 
ingredients  of  one  kind  of  it  are  those  of  gunpowder  ;  but  it  does  not  seem  to 
have  been  used  to  hurl  projectiles. 

f'I<rair6iTTo\os,  a  title  first  applied  to  Constantine  the  Great.  As  to  the 
coronations  of  the  Emperors,  see  Note  XXI  at  end. 


THE   EAST   ROMAN   EMPIRE  331 

supreme  judge,  virtual  master  of  the  lives  and  property  of  CHAP.XVIL 
all  his  subjects.  The  crimes  by  which  he  might  have 
risen  did  not  diminish  the  sanctity  which  his  person  re- 
ceived from  the  office.  Despotism  was  of  course  tempered, 
as  it  must  always  be,  by  various  environing  influences,  by 
the  sentiment  of  the  Church,  by  public  opinion,  sometimes 
expressing  itself  in  sedition  or  insurrection,  by  the  views 
and  interests  of  the  noble  families  of  the  capital,  and  (in 
later  days)  of  the  great  land-holders  in  the  rural  districts. 
But  these  factors  acted  practically,  not  through  any  legal 
channels.  Thus  the  Eastern  Empire  has  only  a  dynastic, 
an  ecclesiastical,  and  a  military  history.  It  has  no  consti- 
tutional history.  The  Teutonic  Empire,  which,  though  an  Absence  of 
autocracy  in  theory,  was  never  a  despotism  in  fact,  had  in  anyre£ular 

J  J  constitution. 

all  its  phases  some  sort  of  constitution,  and  what  might  be 
called  a  kind  of  political  life.  At  several  moments  it  be- 
came the  theatre  for  a  conflict  of  great  principles.  But  the 
Eastern  Empire  had  no  political  life  whatever.  In  it  no 
strife  of  principles  arose.  It  was  always  substantially  the 
same  institution,  which  no  one  thought  of  changing  —  a 
monarchy  not  only  above  law  but  in  so  far  outside  law  as 
that  law  had  nothing  to  do  with  determining  the  person  on 
whom  it  descended.  In  a  state  constantly  at  war  this 
concentration  of  power  in  one  hand  had  some  advantages ; 
just  as  the  absence  of  regular  rules  of  succession  had  the 
merit  of  giving  to  energy  and  ambition  opportunities  for 
displacing  the  incapable.  Men  of  force  came  more  readily 
to  the  top  than  they  do  in  hereditary  monarchies.  There 
was  of  course  a  tendency  for  the  throne  to  become  settled 
in  a  family,  for  an  Emperor  usually  tried  to  secure  the  suc- 
cession for  his  son  or  some  other  relative  either  by  publicly 
destining  him  for  power,  or  by  associating  him  as  co-Em- 
peror during  his  own  life.  Sometimes  a  woman  of  char- 
acter was  able  to  bestow  the  crown  on  successive  husbands, 


332 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


Association 
of  the  im- 
perial gov- 
ernment 
with  the 
Orthodox 
Church. 


CHAP.  xvn.  who  got  in  this  way  (perhaps  by  the  aid  of  murder)  a  sort 
of  title  by  affinity.  But  when  the  vigour  of  a  reigning 
stock  began  to  die  out,  the  stock  usually  disappeared,  and 
an  upstart  adventurer  set  up  a  new  dynasty.  Several  times 
such  a  bold  and  strenuous  man  became  the  deliverer  of  the 
Empire  from  its  foes.  Heraclius,  Leo  the  Isaurian,  Basil 
the  First,  and  the  founder  of  the  Comnenian  line,  were  all 
men  of  conspicuous  force  and  capacity.  The  advent  of 
each  marked  a  renewal  of  the  aggressive  power  of  the 
State. 

But  of  all  the  causes  which  prolonged  the  existence  of 
the  Eastern  Empire  the  most  potent  was  its  association, 
one  might  say  its  identification,  with  the  Orthodox  Church. 
Religion  had  for  a  time  been  in  the  East  a  disruptive  force. 
The  theological  controversies  of  the  fifth  and  sixth  cen- 
turies had  contributed  to  bring  about  the  loss  of  Egypt 
and  Syria  to  the  Musulmans  in  the  seventh  century,  for 
the  Monophysites  of  those  regions,  hostile  to  the  doctrine 
settled  by  the  Council  of  Chalcedon,  which  was  then  domi- 
nant at  Constantinople,  offered  only  a  feeble  resistance  to 
the  invader.  So  in  later  days  the  diffusion  of  the  so-called 
heresies  of  the  Bogomiles  or  Paulicians  weakened  the  loy- 
alty of  the  North-western  provinces.  But  the  Orthodox 
faith,  once  it  had  been  defined  and  determined  by  the  first 
six  Councils,  fixed  itself  deep  in  the  people  of  the  capital 
and  of  the  districts  which  formed  the  solid  nucleus  of  the 
Empire,  and  presently  grew  into  a  bond  of  incalculable 
strength.  Side  by  side  with  the  pride  in  the  Roman 
name,  it  created  a  national  feeling  far  more  intense  than 
the  sentiment  of  common  subjection  to  a  world-embracing 
power  which  had  sprung  up  and  become  a  unifying  force 
under  the  Antonines  and  their  successors.  Some  histo- 
rians of  the  eighteenth  century  thought  that  Christianity 
hastened  the  fall  of  the  Roman  Empire.  Rather  may  it 


THE   EAST   ROMAN   EMPIRE  333 

be  said  that  Christianity  saved  the  Roman  Empire.  As  it  CHAP.XVII. 
was  the  sense  of  one  faith  binding  men  into  one  common- 
wealth of  the  faithful  that  kept  alive  the  imperial  idea  in 
the  West,  and  enabled  Charles  and  Otto  to  set  up  the  an- 
cient image  on  a  new  Teutonic  pedestal,  so  it  was  the  sense 
that  they  were  the  people  chosen  of  God  and  Christ  to 
defend  that  faith,  a  sense  constantly  stimulated  by  strife 
with  heathen  on  the  north  and  Musulmans  on  the  south, 
that  gave  hope,  courage,  and  unity  to  the  East  Romans  all 
through  the  Dark  and  Middle  Ages.8  Well  would  it  have 
been  for  them  if  in  the  last  fatal  years  and  months  they 
could  have  so  far  abated  their  devotion  to  the  minutiae  of 
the  Orthodox  creed  and  to  the  claims  of  their  own  spirit- 
ual chief  .  as  to  have  bought  by  prompter,  franker,  and 
fuller  concessions  the  help  of  the  Pope  and  of  Latin  arms.h 

When  we  pass  to  consider  the  points  in  which  the 
Eastern  Empire  may  profitably  be  compared  with  that  of 
its  Western  sister,  three  will  be  found  to  deserve  special 
examination  :  the  relations  of  each  power  to  the  North- 
ern invaders,  its  relations  to  the  Church,  its  relations  to 
the  traditions  and  institutions  of  ancient  Rome. 

As  from  the  fourth  century  onwards  it  was  the  mission  Relations  of 
and  the  glory  of  the  Latin  Church  to  convert  and  civilize  tke  Em?ire 

°        J  and  the 

the  invading  races  of  the  North  who  descended  upon  the   church  to  the 
Western  provinces,1  so  too  did   the  Eastern  Church  and  barbarians 

of  the  North. 
s  This  is  of  course  more  true  of  the  people  of  the  capital  and  the  more 

civilized  central  districts  of  the  Empire  than  of  the  outlying  parts,  in  some  of 
which  a  sort  of  heathenism  survived  for  some  time,  while  ancient  semi-heathen 
superstitions  and  usages  survived  still  longer. 

h  The  Council  which  sat  first  at  Ferrara  and  then  at  Florence  did  in  A.D. 
1439  effect  a  sort  of  union  of  the  Eastern  and  Western  churches ;  but  the 
action  of  the  Eastern  Emperor  and  his  prelates  in  yielding  on  most  of  the 
points  was  disapproved  by  a  large  part  of  his  people,  and  caused  bitter  dis- 
sensions at  Constantinople. 

1  The  Germans  eastward  of  the  Rhine  were,  however,  largely  converted  by 
Scottish  missionaries  from  Ireland,  such  as  St.  Columban  and  St.  Gall,  who 


334 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN    EMPIRE 


CHAP.  XVII.  Empire,  when  they  found,  somewhat  later,  swarms  of 
Slav  and  Bulgarian  heathen  settling  on  their  borders, 
begin  after  a  time  to  impart  their  culture  to  these 
formidable  neighbours.  Both  divisions  of  the  Christian 
world  had  the  same  task :  both  in  a  manner  fulfilled  it. 
Yet  there  are  striking  differences.  The  West  had  to  deal 
chiefly  with  Teutonic  peoples,  most  of  them  already  par- 
tially Christianized  (though  many  were  at  first  Arians), 
and  most  of  them  well  advanced  beyond  mere  barbarism. 
Much  of  its  work  was  done  before  the  revolt  of  North  Italy 
in  the  eighth  century  severed  East  and  West.  The  East 
received  the  attacks  of  Slavonic  and  Finnish  tribes,  all 
heathen,  all  rude  and  fierce,  and  therewithal,  if  not  inferior 
in  natural  intelligence,  yet  in  a  far  lower  stage  of  culture. 
When,  in  the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries,  the  Goths,  Van- 
dals, Burgundians,  Franks,  and  Lombards  settled  in  the 
Roman  provinces  the  imperial  power  was  dying.  These 
intruding  settlers  scarcely  deemed  themselves  its  enemies  ; 
and  most  of  them  soon  began  to  cherish  such  of  its  insti- 
tutions as  survived,  and  to  bow  themselves  to  the  teach- 
ings of  the  Latin  Church.3  They  became  easily  blent  with 
the  Roman  provincials.  The  Franks  who  stood  out  as 
the  leading  race  presently  became  the  defenders  of  the 
Popedom,  took  up  the  traditions  of  the  old  Empire, 
accepted  the  transference  of  its  crown  to  their  own 
sovereign,  and  kept  it  thenceforth  in  Teutonic  hands. 
The  Roman  sceptre  became  their  sceptre,  and  there 
remained  no  sense  of  antagonism  between  the  children 
of  the  conquered  and  those  of  the  conquerors.  But  in 
the  East,  though  the  Slavs  who  settled  in  Macedonia, 

acted  independently  of  Rome,  as  well  as  by  Anglo-Saxon  missionaries  such  as 
St.  Boniface,  who  went  with  papal  approval. 

J  As  to  certain  exceptions,  e.g.  in  the  case  of  the  Lombards,  see  above, 
chapter  III, 


THE   EAST   ROMAN   EMPIRE  335 

Illyria,  and  Greece  during  the  seventh  and  eighth  centuries  CHAP.XVII. 
became  Graecized  and  subjects,  if  somewhat  unruly  sub- 
jects, of   the  Emperor,  the  later  Slavonic  intruders,  and 
still  more  the  Finnish  Bulgarians,  came  as  savage  pagan 
plunderers,  destroyed  such    Roman   civilization    as    they 
found  and  were  thenceforth  (with  a  few  intervals  of  peace) 
deadly   enemies.      The   Empire   maintained    a    continual 
conflict  with  them.     They  were  ultimately  converted  (the   Conversion 
Bulgarians  in  A.D.  864,  the  Servians  about  the  same  time).  °f the  Bul- 

'     garians 

and  with  their  new  faith  they  received  the  use  of  letters,  and  Serbs. 
the  rudiments  of  law,  and  a  certain  measure  of  culture. 
Somewhat  later,  the  same  change  passed  upon  the  Rus- 
sians, who,  standing  further  away,  came   into   less   close 
and   frequent  contact  with    the  East    Romans,  a  contact 
sometimes  of   alliance  and  sometimes   of  warfare.     Con- 
stantinople became  to  all   these  peoples   the  metropolis 
of   religion  and   civilization,  and   the   colour  which   their 
religion  then  received  is  still  evident  in  all  the  churches 
of    Eastern    Europe.     The   peculiar   spirit    of    Byzantine 
Christianity  may  be  discerned  to-day  as  well  in  the  attitude 
of  the  Church  of  Russia  to  the  Tsar  as  in  the  attitude  of 
the  Russian  and  Hellenic  peoples  to  their  clergy.     But  all 
these  Danubian  and  trans-Danubian  races,  Serbs,  Bulgars, 
Roumanians,  and    Russians,  remained  outside   the   circle 
of   imperial  traditions.     They  never  imbibed   the  Roman 
spirit,  never  became  absorbed  into  the  secular  civilization 
which  New  Rome  had  preserved.     Still  less  did  they  so   Thebar- 
mingle  with  its  population  as  to  give  to  the  East  Roman  tartans 
realm  that  new  life,  that  rich  and  varied  developement  of  "^tfu 
letters,  thought,  and  art,  which  in  Italy  issued   from  the  Empire. 
mingling   of   the   Teutonic   and   Italic   elements.     There 
were    occasional    marriage    alliances    between    the    royal 
houses  of   these  nations  and   the   imperial    houses.     Not 
a  few  of  the  best  generals  of  the  Empire  and  some  of  its 


336  THE   HOLY   ROMAN    EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xvii.  ablest  sovereigns  were  of  Slavonic,  as  still  more  were  of 
Armenian  blood.  The  pride  of  Constantinople  might  have 
refused  to  accept  a  barbarian  king  as  Roman  Emperor. 
Yet  had  it  been  possible  for  Simeon  the  mighty  Bulgarian 
Tsar  of  the  tenth  century,  himself,  like  the  Gothic  Theo- 
dorich,  educated  at  Constantinople,  or  for  Vladimir  the 
Great  who  ruled  the  Russians  eighty  years  later,  to  be 
crowned  in  St.  Sophia  as  Charles  had  been  crowned  in 
St.  Peter's,  the  Eastern  Empire  might  have  widened  its 
foundation,  and  have  received  an  accession  of  strength 
sufficient  to  enable  it  to  repel  the  Latin  Crusaders  in 
1204  and  to  hold  Asia  Minor  against  the  Seljukian 
Sultans.  Simeon  did  indeed  take  the  title  of  Basileus,  and 
did  obtain  from  Pope  Nicholas  I  a  grant  of  the  imperial 
crown,  as  the  price  of  his  adhesion  to  the  Latin  Church  : 
but  nothing  came  of  this  brief  alliance.  Or,  again,  had 
the  men  of  the  Eastern  Empire  been  strong  enough  to 
conquer,  to  incorporate  and  to  assimilate  the  Balkanic 
peoples,  such  an  infusion  of  new  blood  might  have  given 
it  a  fresh  and  long  enduring  life.  That  events  took  a 
different  course,  that  the  Empire,  the  Serbs,  and  the  Bul- 
garians weakened  one  another  by  incessant  strife,  that 
the  destroying  Ottomans  were  thus,  and  by  the  apathy 
of  Western  Europe,  permitted  to  overspread  these  vast 
provinces,  and  hold  them  in  cruel  bondage  for  many 
centuries,  may  well  be  deemed  to  be,  like  the  extinction 
of  the  Ostrogothic  race  in  Italy,  one  of  the  great  and 
unredeemed  catastrophes  of  history.  Driven  within  ever 
narrowing  limits,  with  a  population  that  had  now  become 
slender  and  impoverished,  the  Eastern  Empire  perished. 
The  peoples  to  the  North  —  Bulgarians,  Serbs  of  Servia 
and  Bosnia,  and  Roumanians,  crushed  beneath  the 
Ottoman  yoke,  were  left  far  behind  in  the  march  of 
European  civilization.  Only  within  the  last  seventy  or 


THE   EAST   ROMAN   EMPIRE  337 

eighty  years  have  they  begun  to   add   that   new   culture  CHAP.XVII. 
which   the  West   has   bestowed   to   the   scanty  relics   of 
what  they  learned  from  Byzantium  seven  hundred  years 
before. 

The  Church  was  the  mains.tay  as  well  of  the  Eastern  Relations 
as  of  the  Western  Empire.     In  the  latter  it  recalled  the  °fchurch 

.  .  and  Empire 

imperial  title  to  life :  in  the  former  it  kept  that  title  in  the  £asf 
alive  through  many  troublous  centuries.  But  here  the  and  in  the 
resemblance  ends.  In  the  West,  the  Latin  Church  found 
itself  free  to  grow  and  develope  without  interference  from 
the  secular  power.  No  Emperor  after  Constantine  dwelt 
in  Rome,  and  from  A.D.  476  to  A.D.  800  there  was  no 
Emperor  at  all  in  Italy .k  The  bishop  of  the  imperial  city 
had  the  field  to  himself.  Even  when  strong  men  like 
Charles  and  Otto  bore  the  sceptre,  the  head  of  the  State 
was  too  distant  and  crossed  the  Alps  too  rarely  to  be  able 
to  impose  a  permanent  restraint  on  the  head  of  the  Church. 
But  in  the  East  the  Church  sprang  up  under  the  shadow 
of  the  Empire,  and  remained  thereafter,  both  ecclesiasti- 
cally and  spiritually,  a  stunted  growth.  In  the  days 
of  Justinian,  a  high  spirited  African  prelate  remarked 
that  the  Greek  bishops,  having  wealthy  churches, 
were  afraid  to  oppose  the  Emperor.  Justinian,  arro- 
gating to  himself  the  virtual  control  of  the  Church,  kept 
the  Patriarch  of  Constantinople  bitted  and  bridled : 
and  although  the  archbishop  of  the  imperial  city  was 
always  a  personage  to  be  reckoned  with,  capable  of 
exerting  a  potent  influence  in  ecclesiastical  quarrels, 
and  sometimes  even  in  contests  for  the  throne,  he  never 

k  The  Emperor  Constans  II  paid  a  brief  visit  in  A.D.  663  ;  he  was  disgusted 
with  Constantinople,  but  found  Rome  no  more  agreeable,  and  spent  his  last 
years  at  Syracuse.  Heraclius,  when  (A.D.  617)  he  thought  of  removing  the 
seat  of  power  from  Constantinople,  had  meant  to  fix  it  not  at  Rome  but  at 
Carthage. 

z 


338 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


Inferior 
position  of 
the  Eastern 
Patriarch. 


CHAP.  xvii.  disputed  the  civil  supremacy  of  the  Emperor,  never,  as  did 
his  brother  at  Old  Rome,  attempted  to  claim  the  right  of 
selecting  or  deposing  the  successor  of  Constantine.  Even 
when  the  loss  of  Syria  and  Egypt  had  practically  removed 
from  him  the  rivalry  of  the  three  ancient  patriarchates 
of  Jerusalem,  Alexandria,  and  Antioch,  the  ecclesiastical 
head  of  the  Eastern  hierarchy  could  not  pretend  to  the 
authority  that  belonged  to  the  Latin  Patriarch,  who  held 
the  keys  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.1  In  his  chair  of 
Constantinople  no  apostle  had  sat :  of  none  of  his  pre- 
decessors had  the  fateful  words  been  spoken,  'Thou  art 
Peter,  and  upon  this  rock  will  I  build  my  Church.' 

After  the  days  of  Pope  Gregory  VII,  the  Church  of 
Rome  was  at  least  the  equal,  and  sometimes  almost  the 
mistress,  of  the  Empire.  The  Eastern  Church  was  always 
the  handmaid  of  the  Eastern  State.m  The  Teutonic 
Emperor  was  the  shadow  of  the  Pope,  cast  on  the  secular 
world.  The  Eastern  Patriarch  was  the  shadow  of  the 
Emperor,  cast  on  the  spiritual  world.  A  truly  National 
Church  she  was,  and  as  a  National  Church  she  gave 
immense  cohesion  and  vitality  to  the  East  Roman  realm. 
She  was  less  arrogant,  less  corrupted  by  wealth,  perhaps  less 
penetrated  by  political  worldliness  than  the  Western  Church 
had  in  the  thirteenth  century  become.  The  Emperors  also 
gained  by  escaping  those  long  and  bitter  struggles  with 
the  ecclesiastical  power  which  lasted  in  the  West  from  the 

1  The  claims  of  the  Roman  See  are  fully  set  forth  in  an  interesting  and 
characteristic  letter  of  Pope  Leo  IX  to  the  Eastern  Emperor,  which  may  be 
read  in  Mansi,  Condi,  vol.  xix.  col.  635. 

m  Cp.  Liudprand,  Legatio  Constantinopolitana,  c.  63.  The  bishop  of  Leucas 
assured  Liudprand  that  his  church  had  to  pay  the  Emperor  100  aurei  every 
year,  and  all  the  other  churches  more  or  less  according  to  their  means. 
'  Quod  quam  iniquum  sit,'  says  Liudprand,  '  patris  nostri  Joseph  acta  demon- 
strant ' :  for  when  he  taxed  Egypt  in  the  time  of  famine  he  left  the  land  of 
the  priests  free. 


THE   EAST  ROMAN   EMPIRE  339 

middle  of  the  eleventh  to  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  CHAP.XVII. 
century.  But  the  East  Roman  nation,  both  as  a  secular 
and  a  religious  community,  suffered  by  the  subjection  into 
which  the  Church  had  been  brought.  Its  spirit  was  roused 
by  no  great  conflict  of  principles  like  that  which  stirred 
and  stimulated  the  thoughts  and  feelings  of  Italians  and 
Germans,  of  Frenchmen  and  Englishmen,  in  the  days  of 
the  mediaeval  Popes,  and  which,  never  completely  closed, 
found  its  later  expression  in  the  movement  for  religious 
reform  which  rent  the  Christian  community  in  the  six- 
teenth century.  It  had  not  the  glorious  exuberance  of 
emotional  as  well  as  intellectual  life  which  illumines  the 
annals  of  the  Western  Church  from  the  eleventh  to  the 
sixteenth  century.  It  could  show  no  such  names  as  those 
of  St.  Anselm,  Peter  Abelard,  St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  St. 
Francis,  William  of  Ockham,  John  Wiclif,  Gerson,  Savo- 
narola, Erasmus,  Luther,  Ignatius  Loyola,  Zwingli,  Calvin. 
That  the  Orthodox  Church  of  the  East,  whose  fold  con- 
tains more  than  a  hundred  millions  of  men,  is  to-day  in  all 
the  countries  that  adhere  to  it,  in  Russia  and  Roumania, 
in  Bulgaria,  Servia,  and  Greece,  so  much  less  of  an  intel- 
lectual and  spiritual  factor  in  the  life  of  the  people  than 
are  the  various  branches  of  the  Western  Church,  whether 
the  Roman  Catholic  branch  or  the  countless  forms  of  Protes- 
tantism, is  largely  due  to  the  heavy  hand  which  the  Eastern 
monarchs  laid  upon  their  Patriarch  and  their  bishops. 

Other   causes  no  doubt  there  were  for  the  decadence   character 
of  Eastern  Christianity.     As  in  the  mediaeval  West  the  °fEastern 

r       i         /-«  i  •  i         >      T    •  i       i     Christianity. 

teachings  of  the  Gospel  and  its  appeal  to  the  individual 
soul  were  overlaid,  sometimes  even  obscured,  by  the 
conception  of  a  Visible  Church  within  which  alone  salva- 
tion can  be  found,  because  it  is  only  by  her  ministers  that 
the  sacraments  can  be  dispensed,  so  in  the  East  the  pas- 
sionate theological  controversies  regarding  the  Trinity  and 


340  THE    HOLY   ROMAN    EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xvii.  the  Incarnation  which  had  filled  the  minds  of  laity  as 
well  as  clergy,  from  the  fourth  to  the  seventh  century, 
led  to  the  exaltation  of  doctrinal  orthodoxy  as  the  central 
and  vital  element  in  the  Christian  life.  The  Eastern 
Church  no  doubt  also  valued  itself  upon  its  catholicity, 
as  the  Western  Church  valued  itself  upon  its  orthodoxy. 
But  just  as  the  sense  of  membership  in  one  great  body 
organized  under  one  Vicar  of  God  upon  earth  is  the  char- 
acteristic note  of  the  one,  so  the  full  acceptance  in  the 
exactly  right  sense  of  all  the  dogmas  enunciated  by 
the  Church  is  specially  and  pre-eminently  distinctive  of 
the  other.  This  fettering  of  the  mind  by  the  decrees 
of  ancient  Councils,  this  concentration  of  attention  on 
abstract  and  sometimes  scarcely  comprehensible  proposi- 
tions, is  doubtless  accountable  not  only  for  a  deficient 
sense  of  the  duty  of  the  Church  to  enforce  morality  in 
conduct  (a  point  better  cared  for  in  the  Latin  Church),  but 
also  for  much  of  the  glacial  torpor  which  the  history  of 
Eastern  Christianity  sets  before  us.  But  the  control  of 
the  civil  power  and  the  nationalizing  of  religion  until 
religion  seems  to  become  a  sort  of  ceremonial  function 
of  the  State  have  also  been  paralyzing  influences.  Thus 
the  Eastern  rulers  failed  even  more  conspicuously  than  the 
Catholic  West  failed,  and  than  Protestant  kingdoms  have 
also  failed,  to  solve  the  problem  of  maintaining  a  religious 
community  in  dependence  on,  or  in  legal  connection  with, 
the  civil  government  without  at  the  same  time  injuring  its 
spiritual  freedom,  and  rendering  it  less  responsive  to  the 
changing  currents  of  thought  and  feeling  among  its 
members. 

Respective           The  enquiry  which  of  the  two  rival  imperial  lines  had, 
claims  of  the    ^^  A  D  goo  the  better  title  to  represent  ancient  Rome 

two  Empires      >  * 

to  represent     is  one  fitter  to  occupy  the  minds  of  controversialists  in 
Rome.  the  tenth  century  than  to  be  debated  in   the  twentieth  : 


THE   EAST   ROMAN   EMPIRE  341 


nor  is  there  much  use  in  asking  which  of  the  two  had  pre-  CHAP.XVIL 

served  a  more  genuinely  Roman  character,  for  both  States 

had,  like  all  human  institutions,  whether  ecclesiastical  or 

civil,    undergone   changes  which    made   them   essentially 

different  from  the  majestic  predecessor  whose  name  they 

bore.     To  us  both  seem  almost  equally  unlike  the  heathen 

Empire,  for  both  were  Christian,  and  while  the  one  was 

feudal  the  other  had  taken  an  Oriental  colour.     But  it  is 

worth  while  to  examine  the  view  which  each  took  of  itself, 

and  the  sense  in  which  each  deemed  itself  to  represent  the 

rights  and  the  glories  of  the  ancient  World  Power ;  for, 

however  strange  may  seem  to  us  the  ideas  that  inspired 

the  Teutonic  and  the  Byzantine  princes  respectively,  those 

ideas  were  potent  factors  in  history. 

The  two  lines  were  always  rivals,  since  neither  would  Hostility  of 
or  could  admit  the  title  of  the  other  to  the  great  inheri-  thetwo 

,  ,       t      •  .  Churches  and 

tance.  This  made  them  enemies,  and  their  enmity  was  Empires. 
intensified  by  the  antagonism  of  what  we  may  call,  from 
the  languages  they  used  in  worship,  the  Greek  and  Latin 
Churches.  Disputes  on  points  of  doctrine  and  on  points 
of  ecclesiastical  precedence  had  arisen  in  the  sixth  and 
seventh  centuries.  The  mutual  aversion  of  the  Churches, 
embittered  by  the  quarrel  over  the  use  of  images  in  wor- 
ship, was  prolonged,  after  that  source  of  strife  had  vanished, 
by  the  refusal  of  the  Patriarchs  at  Constantinople  to  admit 
the  supremacy  of  the  chair  of  Peter,  till  in  the  ninth,  and 
more  definitely  in  the  middle  of  the  eleventh  century, 
aversion  passed  into  the  schism  which  finally  severed  the 
two  communions,  that  fatal  schism,  without  which  neither 
would  the  Crusaders  of  A.D.  1204  have  attacked  a  Chris- 
tian capital,  nor  would  that  capital,  in  its  last  hour  of 
dire  necessity  two  and  a  half  centuries  later,  have  been 
abandoned  by  the  Western  nations.  Other  causes  for  the 
alienation  of  the  two  Churches  there  were,  but  the  chief 


342 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


Pretensions 
of  each  im- 
perial line. 


CHAP. xvn.  one  was  a  point  of  doctrine  which,  though  subtle  theolo- 
gians may  draw  a  chain  of  inferences  from  it,  was  and 
remains  beyond  the  reach  of  ordinary  human  intelligence, 
the  question  whether  the  Holy  Spirit  proceeds  from  the 
Father  and  the  Son  or  from  the  Father  alone. 

Each  of  the  rival  lines  had  much  to  allege  on  its  be- 
half. The  Easterns  traced,  from  Constantine  downwards, 
an  unbroken  succession  of  monarchs  always  reigning  in 
the  same  city,  preserving,  along  with  the  Roman  name, 
the  titles  and  ceremonies,  the  supremacy  in  ecclesiastical 
affairs,  and  the  civil  institutions  which  had  existed  in  the 
days  of  the  first  Christian  Emperor.  No  breach  of  con- 
tinuity affected  their  title.  In  Eastern  eyes  the  coronation 
of  Charles  the  Great  was  an  act  of  unholy  rebellion :  his 
successors  barbarian  intruders,  ignorant  of  the  laws  and 
usages  of  the  ancient  State,  and  with  no  claim  to  be 
deemed  Romans  except  that  which  the  favour  of  an  arro- 
gant pontiff  might  confer.  Standing  all  by  themselves,  a 
bright  spot  of  civilization  in  a  barbarian  world,  with  wild 
Bulgarians  to  the  north  and  Muslim  sons  of  the  desert 
to  the  south,  they  formed  an  extravagant  conceit  of  their 
own  importance,  and  plumed  themselves  all  the  more  upon 
the  incomparable  lustre  of  their  crown.  Seldom,  and  only 
when  sore  need  drove  them  to  courtesy,  did  they  recognize 
the  titles  used  by  the  Prankish  and  German  sovereigns. 
Basil  the  Macedonian  reproached  the  Western  Emperor 
Lewis  the  Second  with  presuming  to  use  the  name  of 
Basileus  ;  to  which  the  Frank  retorted  that  he  was  as 
much  an  Emperor  as  Basil,  but  that  anyhow  Basileus  was 
only  the  Greek  for  '  king,'  and  need  not  mean  '  Emperor ' 
at  all.  Nicephorus  Phocas  refused  to  call  Otto  the  Great 
anything  but  'King  of  the  Lombards'  :n  Conrad  III  was 

n  Liutprand,  Legatio  Constantinopolitana.  Nicephorus  says,  '  Vis  maius 
scandalum  quam  quod  se  imperatorem  vocat'  (cap.  xxv). 


THE   EAST   ROMAN   EMPIRE  343 

addressed  by  Kalo-Joannes  as  'amice  imperil  mei  Rex':°  CHAP. xvn. 
Isaac  Angelus,  more  insolently,  styled  Frederick  the  First 
'chief  prince  of  Alemannia.' p  The  great  Hohenstaufen, 
half  resentful,  half  contemptuous,  told  the  Eastern  envoys 
that  he  was  Romanorum  Imperator,  and  bade  their  master 
call  himself  '  Romaniorum,'  from  the  Thracian  province  of 
Romania.  Once,  at  least,  an  Eastern  sovereign  attempted 
to  extrude  his  Teutonic  competitor  from  the  lordship  of 
the  world.  When  Frederick  the  First  was  engaged  in  his 
struggle  with  Pope  Alexander  the  Third  and  the  cities  of 
Lombardy,  Manuel  Comnenus,  the  most  valiant  and  most 
aspiring  of  his  line,  while  attempting  to  reconquer  South- 
ern Italy  from  the  Norman  kings,  gave  his  support  to  the 
rebellious  Lombards,  helped  the  Milanese  to  rebuild  their 
walls,  sought  to  win  over  the  nobles  of  Rome,  and  invited 
the  Pope  to  deprive  Frederick  of  the  imperial  crown  and 
restore  it  to  himself  as  the  rightful  claimant.  The  wary 
pontiff,  however,  though  the  request  was  accompanied  by 
a  promise  to  secure  the  reunion  of  the  Eastern  and  West- 
ern Churches,  as  well  as  by  large  gifts  of  money,  could  not 
see  his  way  to  so  revolutionary  a  step  as  a  reversal  of  that 
'Translation  of  the  Empire,'  which  had  been  effected  by 
his  predecessor  three  centuries  and  a  half  before.  '  These 
things,'  he  said, '  are  too  high  for  me  and  too  complicated.' q 
He  was  wise.  The  chasm  that  divided  the  East  from  the 
West  was  already  too  wide  to  be  thus  bridged. 

Against  that  legitimacy  and  continuity  on  which  the  strength  of 
East  Romans  relied,  the  Western  monarchs  had  two  things  the  Western 

position  : 

to  set.     With  them  was  the  City.      With  them  was  the  R0meand 
Chair  of  the  Apostle.     The  chroniclers  who  describe  the  the  Pope. 
coronation  of  Charles  justly  dwell  upon  the  fact  that  'he 
held  Rome,  the  mother  of  Empire,  where  the  Caesars  had 

0  Otto  of  Freysing,  i.  c.  30.  P  See  Note  XXII  at  end. 

1  See  Vita  Alexandri  III,  ap.  Muratori,  S.  R.  T.  iii.  i.  460,  col.  ii.  B-E. 


344 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP. xvii.  always  been  wont  to  sit,'  and  that  it  was  the  successor  of 
Peter  who  placed  the  crown  upon  his  brow.r  Rome  and 
the  Catholic  Church,  these  were  the  two  pillars  of  Empire  : 
and  with  these  the  Germans  and  Italians  were  so  well  con- 
tent that  they  scarcely  felt  the  rival  pretensions  of  Con- 
stantinople to  be  a  flaw  in  the  title  of  their  Emperor. 
The  Eastern  Church  was  no  doubt  then,  as  she  is  now, 
a  thorn  in  the  side  of  the  Papacy.  But  the  Pope  was  the 
last  person  who  could,  in  his  quarrels  with  the  Teutonic 
sovereigns,  use  the  Eastern  claim  in  any  argument  against 
them,  because  to  have  treated  Constantinople  as  the  equal 
of  Rome  would  have  been  to  lower  his  own  see  to  the 
level  of  Constantinople,  as  well  as  to  question  the  validity 
of  the  transference  effected  by  Pope  Leo  III.  Neither, 
however,  did  any  other  antagonists  of  the  Teutonic  Em- 
perors—  as  for  instance  the  writers  who  in  the  fourteenth 
and  fifteenth  centuries  maintained  the  independence  of 
the  crown  of  France  —  lay  stress  upon  the  existence  of  an 
Empire  in  the  East  as  evidence  against  the  claim  of  the 
Germanic  sovereign  to  oecumenical  supremacy.  The  truth 
seems  to  be  that  the  Western  World,  from  the  ninth  cen- 
tury onwards,  knew  and  cared  comparatively  little  about 
the  East.  The  intellectual  and  social  unity  of  Europe 
was  in  those  days  maintained  by  the  clergy  and  especially, 
after  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century,  by  the  friars  : 
and  the  clergy  seldom  passed  outside  the  bounds  of  Latin 
Christendom.  By  land  there  was  little  intercourse,  except 
when  a  crusading  host  passed  through,  for  rude  Slavonic 
tribes  lay  between,  and  such  sea  trade  as  went  on  between 
Italy  and  Constantinople  —  after  the  eleventh  century  it 
was  chiefly  in  the  hands  of  the  Pisans,  the  Genoese,  and 
the  Venetians  —  did  little  to  establish  relations  in  the 
sphere  of  thought  and  literature,  how  little  may  be  judged 

*  See  chap.  V,  su^ra. 


Slight 
knowledge 
of  the  East 
in  the  West. 


THE   EAST   ROMAN    EMPIRE  345 

from  the  paucity  of  Greek  MSS.  in  Western  Europe.  CHAP.XVIL 
Even  Dante  could  not  read  Greek  and  never  saw  a  Greek 
copy  of  the  Homeric  poems.8  Thus  the  mass  of  the 
people  scarcely  remembered  the  existence  of  the  Eastern 
Christians  :  and  of  those  who  did,  the  most  part  thought 
of  them  as  Samaritans  who  refused  to  worship  at  Jerusa- 
lem, perverse  rebels  against  the  authority  of  the  Apostolic 
See,  who  were  little  better  than  heretics  or  infidels.  And 
although  the  few  ecclesiastics  of  superior  knowledge  and 
insight  could  not  treat  the  pretensions  of  communities 
which  had  been  among  the  first  to  embrace  Christianity, 
and  had  preserved  so  many  of  its  ancient  forms,  with 
the  scorn  that  was  felt  for  Western  sectaries,  although 
the  Roman  Church  has  never  questioned  the  validity  of 
Eastern  orders,  nor  deemed  those  who  stand  within  the 
Eastern  fold  to  be  outside  the  bounds  of  covenanted  sal- 
vation, still  these  leaders  of  opinion  were  so  preoccupied 
by  the  established  theory  of  the  identity  of  the  Roman 
Church  and  the  Roman  Empire,  and  so  convinced  of  the 
right  of  Peter  to  choose  whom  he  would  as  the  temporal 
guardian  of  his  flock,  that  they  could  not  apprehend  the 
weak  points  in  their  own  position  or  the  strength  of  their 
opponents'.  Enthralled  by  the  majesty  of  their  own  theory, 
a  theory  which  existed  outside  the  sphere  of  fact,  they  were 
not  disturbed  by  a  fact  inconsistent  with  it. 

They  lived  in  a  sort  of  cloudland,  where  the  real  truths 
seemed  to  be  those  grand  ideas  that  shone  upon  them  like 
stars  through  an  encircling  mist.  Their  preoccupation 

1  Nearly  forty  years  after  Dante's  death  Petrarch  succeeded  in  procuring 
a  MS.  of  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey,  and  some  years  later  Boccaccio,  who  had 
obtained  another  MS.,  had  it  literally  translated  into  Latin  and  sent  it  to 
Petrarch.  These  are  the  first  we  hear  of  in  Italy,  See  Paget  Toynbee,  Dante 
Studies  and  Researches,  p.  205.  However,  Robert  Grosseteste,  bishop  of 
Lincoln,  knew  Greek,  and  his  famous  contemporary,  Roger  Bacon,  appears  to 
have  composed  a  Greek  Grammar. 


346 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  xvn.  with  the  conception  of  a  universal  Christian  commonwealth 
was  a  part  of  that  imaginative  vision  and  mystic  sense 
which  ennoble  the  Middle  Ages,  and  which  make  it  de- 
lightful and  refreshing  to  turn  back  to  those  times  from 
the  garish  day  of  a  world  ruled  by  the  methods  of  physical 
science  and  the  methods  of  historical  criticism.  This 
power  it  was  which  enabled  them  to  bequeath  to  us  so 
much  on  which  our  imagination  still  feeds,  so  much  splen- 
did poetry,  so  much  myth  and  fancy  and  legend,  matter  fit 
for  poetry,  on  which  the  creative  genius  of  later  centuries 
has  worked. 

The  West  was  full  of  imaginative  minds,  not  in  Italy, 
Provence,  and  Germany  only,  but  as  far  as  remote  Erin 
and  still  remoter  Iceland.  But  the  East  Romans  were  not 
imaginative.  They  were  a  practical  people,  with  their  eyes 
fixed  on  the  actual.  Superstitious  they  were,  and  full  of 
a  reverence  for  the  past  which  often  ran  into  a  fantastic 
antiquarianism.  But  they  were  neither  poetical  nor  mytho- 
poeic.  Their  Emperor  was  a  living  and  familiar  person- 
age. He  was,  like  the  kings  of  other  countries,  king  over 
a  nation,  the  ruler  of  a  realm  which,  once  universal,  had 
been  narrowed  to  a  nation,  with  a  national  language  and 
a  national  character.  He  was  indeed  a  far  more  resplen- 
dent sort  of  king  than  were  the  kings  of  the  barbarians, 
being  the  successor  of  the  Caesars  of  old,  with  a  never 
abandoned  claim  to  be  the  first  of  all  potentates.  But  he 
was  so  essential  to  their  particular  state,  so  firmly  rooted 
in  all  its  traditions,  that  neither  the  disobedience  of  the 
Roman  city  nor  the  hostility  of  the  Roman  pontiff  affected 
their  confidence  in  his  right  and  their  right  to  represent 
the  Roman  dominion.  The  rivalry  of  the  West  had  no 
doubt  cost  them  Italy,  and  it  detracted  from  their  impor- 
tance in  the  eyes  of  other  nations.  It  was  an  odious  fact, 
like  the  existence  of  the  Bulgarians,  who  had  robbed  them 


The  East 
Romans 
less  disposed 
to  idealize 
their 
Emperor. 


THE   EAST    ROMAN   EMPIRE  347 

of  Thrace,  and  the  existence  of  the  Hagarenes,*  who  had  CHAP.XVH 
robbed  them  of  Syria.  But  it  never  shook  their  self-con- 
fidence, and  their  sense  of  immeasureable  superiority  to  the 
barbarians  of  Central  and  Western  Europe.  Even  Latin 
had  become  to  them  what  it  had  been  to  the  Athenians 
ten  centuries  before,  a  barbarian  language. 

This  difference  of  attitude  illustrates  the  contrast  be-   Contrast  of 
tween  the  people  of  the  Western  and  those  of  the  Eastern   theEaitan* 

T-  r  tlte  West  as 

Empire  in  the  sphere  or  thought  and  letters.  respects 

The  Holy  Empire,  except  in  so  far  as  it  was  united  with  literature 
the  German  kingdom,  was  a  dream,  a  sublime  conception,  a"  u 
half  theology  and  half  poetry,  of  the  unity  of  mankind, 
who  are  themselves  the  children  of  God,  as  realized  in  one 
Church,  which  is  also  a  State,  and  in  one  State,  which  is 
also  a  Church.  The  East  Roman  Empire  was  a  reality,  a 
tangible  fact  in  an  actual  world,  drawing  neither  strength 
nor  beauty  from  any  theory,  and  not  appearing  to  need 
any  theory  to  support  it.  Why  was  this  so  ?  Why  did 
not  the  same  group  of  ideas  which  had  kept  alive  the 
memory  of  Rome  in  the  West  down  to  the  days  of  Charles 
the  Great,  and  which  in  the  eleventh,  twelfth,  and  thir- 
teenth centuries  developed  those  ideas  into  that  ordered 
form  which  they  held  in  men's  minds  in  the  time  of  Dante 
— why  did  not  these  ideas  fill  and  sway  men's  minds  in  the 
East  also,  and  find  due  expression  in  their  literature  and 
their  art  ?  Why  did  not  the  Ideal  array  the  Actual  in 
those  gorgeous  hues  which  the  great  Westerns  lavished 
on  their  two  heads  of  Christendom,  the  Sun  and  the  Moon 
of  their  ethereal  firmament  ? 

One  reason  may  have  been  because  the  Emperor  had  Why  did  the 
in  the  East  always  been  a  tangible  and  permanent  fact.  East  theorizt 
The  Easterns  were  reverent,  and  they  were  not  less  super-  regarding 

*  This  was  the  name  by  which  they  usually  called  their  Saracen  or  Arab 


enemies. 


348  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xvn.  stitious  than  the  Westerns.  Superstition  goes  with  a  pro- 
found belief  in  forms  and  ceremonies.  But  the  constant 
presence  of  the  successor  of  Constantine  made  him  an 
object  not  so  fit  to  be  idealized  as  the  Emperor  of  tradition 
had  become  in  the  West,  and  dispensed  with  the  need  for 
a  philosophic  theory.u  The  autocrat  of  Constantinople 
required  no  doctrinal  scheme  to  buttress  his  power:  the 
Western  did  require  it  just  because  he  was  less  able  to 
stand  by  his  own  strength.  So  perhaps  we  may  find 
another  reason  in  the  fact  that  the  East  had  not  in  its 
capital  a  mystic  Mother  of  Empire,  such  as  was  Old  Rome, 
filled  with  the  bones  of  martyrs,  and  had  not,  as  its  chief 
pastor,  the  Universal  Bishop,  the  living  representative  on 
earth  of  the  Divine  Word  in  heaven.  The  Patriarch  of 
Constantinople  was  only  a  primate,  standing  not  greatly 
above  other  bishops.  Constantinople  was,  moreover,  an 
artificial  creation,  the  work  of  one  Emperor,  suddenly 
raised  into  a  capital  out  of  a  town  previously  famous  only 
for  its  admirable  site.  It  had  neither  the  immemorial 
renown  nor  the  hallowed  associations  of  the  elder  city 
on  the  Tiber. 

Yet  perhaps  we  must  seek  a  still  deeper  cause.  The 
East  was  not  steeped,  as  was  the  West,  in  the  idea  of  a 
Church  organized  and  administered  like  a  State.  Italy, 
which  had  stamped  her  type  of  practical  intellect  upon  the 
whole  Latin  West,  had  achieved  in  earlier  days  two  great 
things :  she  had  created  an  Administration  and  a  Law 
fitted  for  a  world.  The  Hellenistic  East,  not  Greek  in  the 
old  classical  sense,  as  we  are  too  apt  to  assume,  but  a  mix- 

u  It  must  be  admitted  that  the  Popes  of  the  (later)  ninth  and  tenth  cen- 
turies were  a  reality  in  Rome  and  a  reality  not  fit  for  idealization.  But  it  was 
the  Catholic  world  at  a  distance  that  idealized  their  office :  it  was  the  Teutonic 
Emperors  that  effected  the  great  reformation  which  begins  at  the  end  of  the 
tenth  century. 


THE   EAST   ROMAN   EMPIRE  349 

ture  of  Hellenic  and  Asiatic  elements,  had  shewn  no  gift  CHAP.XVII. 
for  the  creation  of  institutions,  but  had  applied  an  amazing 
speculative  and  dialectic  faculty  to  the  abstract  problems 
of  theology.  After  the  extinction  of  imperial  rule  in  the 
West,  the  Latin  Church,  still  permeated  by  the  practical 
instincts  of  Rome,  went  on  developing  an  ecclesiastical 
organization,  modelled  upon  the  civil  administration  which 
had  perished,  till  her  efforts  culminated  in  the  mediaeval 
hierarchy  and  the  system  of  Canon  Law.  She  could  not 
think  of  the  Christian  people  except  in  the  form  of  a  body 
of  worshippers  organized  under  a  government,  and  a  gov- 
ernment with  an  autocratic  head.  Thus  she  created  the 
Pope ;  and  the  Pope  (as  we  have  seen  x)  re-created  the 
Emperor.  But  to  the  Eastern  Christians,  occupied  as 
they  had  been  with  determining  the  nature  of  God  and 
of  Christ,  the  Christian  people  appeared  in  the  form  of 
a  body  of  worshippers  professing  exactly  the  same  lifegiving 
dogmas.  Doctrine,  not  organization,  came  first  in  their 
minds.  As  their  civil  administration  had  never  been 
shattered,  they  had  less  need,  even  if  they  had  possessed 
the  capacity,  to  build  up  an  ecclesiastical  system  like  that 
of  the  West ;  nor  would  the  secular  power  have  permitted 
them  to  do  so.  Hence  they  did  not  turn  their  Patriarch 
into  a  Pope :  and  hence  there  was  no  Pope  to  create  an 
Emperor  in  his  own  image.  Herein  may  lie  an  explana- 
tion of  the  seeming  paradox  that  the  Eastern  monarch, 
with  far  greater  practical  authority  in  ecclesiastical  affairs 
than  his  Western  rivals  exercised,  except  perhaps  in  the 
days  of  Charles  and  again  of  Henry  the  Third,  had  not 
that  ideal  position  in  the  world  of  politics,  morals,  and 
religion  —  three  things  which  were  virtually  the  same 
to  these  mediaeval  thinkers  —  which  Christian  theory  as- 
signed to  the  Emperor  in  the  West. 

x  See  chapter  VII,  ante. 


350 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN    EMPIRE 


Want  of 
creative 
•power 
among  the 
Easterns. 


CHAP.  xvn.  Let  us  note  one  more  difference,  affecting  the  concep- 
tion of  the  imperial  office,  between  the  temper  and  mind 
of  East  and  of  West. 

The  intellect  of  the  East  Romans  had  ceased  to  be 
creative.  Whether  it  was  that  they  had  not  experienced 
that  renewal  of  vital  forces  which  the  intermixture  of 
Northern  blood  gave  to  the  Italians,  or  that  they  lacked 
the  freshness  of  vision  and  susceptibility  to  impressions 
which  a  new  set  of  social  conditions  create,  or  that  they 
were  too  much  isolated,  too  little  stirred  by  peaceful  inter- 
course with  other  peoples  (for  their  contact  with  their 
neighbours  was  almost  always  hostile),  or  whether  they 
were  oppressed  by  the  stores  of  knowledge  which  had  come 
down  to  them  from  the  ancient  world  —  whatever  be  the 
cause,  they  seemed  to  want  intellectual  initiative  and  that 
kind  of  constructive  faculty  which  depends  on  imagination. 
Their  talent  and  their  industry  —  and  there  was  plenty 
both  of  talent  and  of  industry  —  ran  to  the  piling  up  of 
knowledge,  the  recording  of  facts,  the  investigation  of 
minute  points  in  theology  or  in  archaeology.7  The  West 
had  creative  power  without  learning :  the  East  had  learn- 
ing without  creative  power.  This  is  perhaps  the  reason 
why  the  Eastern  Empire  lost,  and  may  never  regain,  its 
hold  upon  the  interest  of  mankind.  Standing  apart  and 
unfriended,  it  has  a  splendid  record  of  stubborn  resistance 
to  formidable  enemies  on  every  side,  and  of  a  patriotism 
which  the  bitterest  internal  discords  never  extinguished. 
Its  annals  are  full  of  striking  incidents  and  brilliant  per- 
sonalities. But  these  personalities,  brilliant  by  their  energy 
and  their  adventures,  seldom  touch  the  deepest  springs  of 
interest,  for  they  are  not  associated  with  great  principles, 

y  There  was  a  great  deal  of  literary  activity  at  Constantinople,  and  it  was 
not  confined,  as  it  practically  was  in  the  West,  to  clerics  ;  laymen  who  were 
men  of  affairs  wrote  and  wrote  well. 


THE   EAST   ROMAN   EMPIRE  351 

nor  does  any  literary  or  artistic  genius,  rising  to  greatness  CHAP.XVII. 
among  his  fellow  countrymen,  cast  his  rays  upon  them. 
After  Justinian's  days,  the  East  Roman  Empire  produced, 
and  has  left  us,  little  in  the  higher  forms  of  art  and  nothing 
in  institutions.  It  added  nothing  to  the  common  store  of 
thought  and  beauty  in  literature.  It  produced  no  specula- 
tive philosophy  like  that  of  the  great  Western  schoolmen, 
no  romantic  figures  in  whom  the  gifts  of  thought  and  of 
action  were  united,  like  Bernard  of  Clairvaux  and  Arnold 
of  Brescia,  and  least  of  all  any  poetry  like  that  of  mediaeval 
Provence  and  Italy. 

Yet  it  has  been  a  mighty  factor  in  history,  for  it 
stemmed  for  centuries  the  tide  of  Asiatic  invasion,  and 
it  kept  alive  a  Church  which  has  helped  to  create  and 
maintain  an  intense  national  feeling  among  the  largest 
and  most  swiftly  growing  of  modern  European  peoples. 
The  Russians,  who  are  as  much  a  religious  as  a  political 
community,  carry  with  them  over  the  vast  spaces  of 
Northern  and  Central  Asia  the  traditions  of  an  Empire 
conterminous  with  a  Church,  an  Empire  which  is  at 
once  the  offspring  and  the  guardian  of  the  Orthodox 
Faith. 


CHAPTER   XVIII 


CHAP. 
XVIII. 

Wenzel, 

A.D.  1378- 

1400. 

Rupert, 

1400-1410. 

Sigismund, 

1410-1438. 

Council  of 

Constance, 

1414-1418. 


THE  RENAISSANCE:  CHANGE  IN  THE  CHARACTER  OF  THE 

EMPIRE 

IN  Frederick  the  Third's  reign  the  Empire  sank  to  its 
lowest  point.  It  had  shot  forth  a  fitful  gleam  under 
Sigismund,  who  in  convoking  and  helping  to  guide  the 
Council  of  Constance  had  revived  one  of  the  highest  func- 
tions of  his  predecessors.  The  precedents  of  the  first  great 
oecumenical  councils,  and  especially  of  the  Council  of 
Nicaea,  had  established  the  principle  that  it  belonged  to 
the  Emperor,  even  more  properly  than  to  the  Pope,  to  con- 
voke ecclesiastical  assemblies  from  the  whole  Christian 
world.  The  tenet  commended  itself  to  the  reforming  party 
in  the  Church,  headed  by  John  Gerson,  chancellor  of  the 
University  of  Paris,  whose  aim  it  was,  while  making  no 
changes  in  matters  of  faith,  to  correct  the  abuses  which 
had  grown  up  in  discipline  and  government,  and  limit  the 
power  of  the  Popes  by  exalting  the  authority  of  General 
Councils,  to  whom  it  was  now  sought  to  ascribe  an  immu- 
nity from  error  superior  to  that,  whatever  it  might  be, 
which  resided  in  the  successor  of  Peter.  And  although 
it  was  only  the  sacerdotal  body,  not  the  whole  Christian 
people,  who  were  thus  made  the  exponents  of  the  universal 
religious  consciousness,  the  doctrine  was  nevertheless  a 
foreshadowing  of  the  larger  claims  which  were  soon  to 
follow.  The  existence  of  the  Holy  Empire  and  the  exist- 
ence of  General  Councils  were,  as  has  been  already  re- 

352 


THE   RENAISSANCE   AND   ITS   EFFECTS  353 

marked,  essential  parts  of  one  and  the  same  theory,*  and  CHAP. 
it  was  therefore  more  than   a  coincidence  that  the  last  XVIII« 
occasion  on  which  the  whole  of  Latin  Christendom  met  to 
deliberate  and  act  as  a  single  commonwealth,1*  was  also  the 
last  on  which  that  commonwealth's  lawful  temporal  head 
appeared  in   the   exercise  of   his  international  functions. 
Never  afterwards  was  he,  in  the  eyes  of  Europe,  anything 
more  than  a  German  monarch. 

It  might  seem  doubtful  whether  he  would  long  remain  Albert  n, 
a  monarch  at  all.  When  Sigismund  died  leaving  no  male  1438-1440. 
heir  the  electors  chose  as  Emperor  his  son-in-law  Albert 


of  Hapsburg,  who  had  just  been  made  king  of  Hungary.   1493- 
Albert  was  a  man  of  ability  and  character,  who  might  have 
done  something  to  restore  the  power  of  the  crown.     But 
he  died  after  two  years  :  and  his  successor  Frederick  duke 
of  Styria,  a  Hapsburg  of  the  younger  line,  had  neither  the 
energy  nor  the  courage  which  the  conditions  of  the  moment 
required.     So  when  in  A.D.  1493  the  long  and  calamitous 
reign  of  Frederick  ended,  it  was  impossible  for  the  princes 
to   see  with    unconcern   the   condition    into   which   their 
selfishness  and  turbulence  had  brought  the  Empire.     The 
time  was  indeed  critical.     Hitherto  the  Germans  had  been 
protected  rather  by  the  weakness  of  their  enemies  than  by    weakness 
their  own  strength.     From  France  there  had  been  little  °f  Germany 
to  fear  while  the  English  menaced  her  on  one  side  and  ^H/LT^ 
the  Burgundian  dukes  on  the  other;   from  England  still  other  states 
less  while  she  was  torn  by  the  strife  of  York  and  Lan-  °fEur°fe- 
caster.     But  now  throughout  Western  Europe  the  power 

a  It  is  not  without  interest  to  observe  that  the  Council  of  Basel  (A.D.  1431- 
1443)  showed  signs  of  reciprocating  imperial  care  by  claiming  those  very 
rights  over  the  Empire  to  which  the  Popes  were  accustomed  to  pretend. 

b  The  Councils  of  Basel  and  Florence  were  not  recognized  from  first  to  last 
by  all  Europe,  as  was  the  Council  of  Constance.     When  the  Assembly  of  Trent 
met  (A.D.  1545),  the  great  religious  schism  had  already  made  a  general  coun- 
cil, in  the  true  sense  of  the  word,  impossible. 
2A 


354 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP. 
XVIII. 


Loss  of  im- 
perial 
territories. 


of  the  feudal  oligarchies  was  broken  ;  and  its  chief  coun- 
tries were  being,  by  the  establishment  of  fixed  rules  of 
succession  and  the  absorption  of  the  smaller  into  the  larger 
principalities,  rapidly  built  up  into  compact  and  aggressive 
military  monarchies.  Thus  Spain  became  a  great  state  by 
the  union  of  Castile  and  Aragon,  and  the  conquest  of  the 
Moors  of  Granada.  Thus  in  England  there  arose  the 
popular  despotism  of  the  Tudors.  France  had  in  the  first 
half  of  the  fifteenth  century  been  desolated  by  intestine 
feuds,  and  for  a  time  prostrate  at  the  feet  of  England. 
Now,  enlarged  and  consolidated  under  Lewis  the  Eleventh 
and  his  successors,  she  began  to  acquire  that  predominant 
influence  on  the  politics  of  Europe  which  her  commanding 
geographical  position,  the  martial  spirit  of  her  people,  and 
the  restless  ambition  of  her  rulers,  secured  to  her  during 
several  centuries.  Meantime  there  had  appeared  in  the 
far  East  a  foe  still  more  terrible.  The  capture  of 
Constantinople  gave  the  Turks  a  firm  hold  on  Europe, 
and  inspired  them  with  the  hope  of  effecting  in  the 
fifteenth  century  what  Abderrahman  and  his  Spanish 
Saracens  had  so  nearly  effected  in  the  eighth  —  of  estab- 
lishing the  faith  of  Islam  through  all  the  provinces  that 
obeyed  the  Western  as  well  as  the  Eastern  Caesars.  The 
navies  of  the  Ottoman  sultans  swept  the  Mediterranean  ; 
their  well  appointed  armies  pierced  Hungary  and  threatened 
Vienna. 

Nor  was  it  only  that  formidable  enemies  had  arisen 
without :  the  frontiers  of  Germany  herself  were  exposed 
by  the  loss  of  those  adjoining  territories  which  had 
formerly  owned  allegiance  to  the  Emperors.  Poland, 
once  tributary,  had  shaken  off  the  yoke  at  the  Great 
Interregnum,  and  had  recently  wrested  West  Prussia  from 
the  Teutonic  knights,  and  compelled  their  Grand  Master 
to  swear  allegiance  in  respect  of  East  Prussia,  which  they 


THE   RENAISSANCE   AND   ITS   EFFECTS  355 

still  retained.  Bohemia,  where  German  culture  had  struck  CHAP. 
deeper  roots,  remained  a  member  of  the  Empire ;  but  the 
privileges  she  had  obtained  from  Charles  the  Fourth,  and 
the  subsequent  acquisition  of  Silesia  and  Moravia,  made 
her  virtually  independent.  The  restless  Hungarians 
avenged  their  former  vassalage  to  Germany  by  frequent 
inroads  on  her  eastern  border. 

Imperial  power  in  Italy  ended  with  the  life  of  Frederick  Italy. 
the  Second,  for  the  ill  starred  expeditions  of  Henry  the 
Seventh  and  Lewis  the  Fourth  gave  it  only  a  brief  and 
fleeting  revival.  Rupert  did  indeed  cross  the  Alps,  but  it 
was  as  the  hireling  of  Florence ;  Frederick  the  Third  re- 
ceived the  Lombard  as  well  as  the  imperial  crown,  but  it 
no  longer  conveyed  the  slightest  power.  In  the  beginning 
of  the  fourteenth  century  Dante  still  hopes  the  renovation 
of  his  country  from  the  action  of  the  Teutonic  Emperors. 
A  little  later  Matthew  Villani  sees  clearly  that  they  do 
not  and  cannot  reign  to  any  purpose  south  of  the  Alps.0 
Nevertheless  the  phantom  of  imperial  authority  lingers 
on  for  a  time.  It  is  put  forward  by  the  Ghibeline  tyrants 
of  the  cities  to  justify  their  attacks  on  their  Guelfic  neigh- 
bours :  even  resolute  republicans  like  the  Florentines  do 
not  yet  venture  altogether  to  reject  it,  however  unwilling 
to  permit  its  exercise.  Before  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  the  names  of  Guelf  and  Ghibeline  had  ceased  to 

c  '  E  pero  venendo  gl'  imperadori  della  Magna  col  supremo  titolo,  e  volendo 
col  senno  e  colla  forza  della  Magna  reggere  gli  Italian!,  non  lo  fanno  e  non 
lo  possono  fare.'  —  M.  Villani,  iv.  77. 

Matthew  Villani's  etymology  of  the  two  great  faction  names  of  Italy  is 
worth  quoting,  as  a  fair  sample  of  the  skill  of  mediaevals  in  such  matters :  — 
'  La  Italia  tutta  e  divisa  mistamente  in  due  parti,  1'  una  che  seguita  ne'  fatti 
del  mondo  la  santa  chiesa  —  e  questi  son  dinominati  Guelfi;  cioe,  guardatori 
di  fe.  E  1'  altra  parte  seguitano  lo  'mperio  o  fedele  o  enfedele  che  sia  delle 
cose  del  mondo  a  santa  chiesa.  E  chiamansi  Ghibellini,  quasi  guida  belli; 
cioe,  guidatori  di  battaglie.' 


356 


THE  HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP. 
XVIII. 


have  any  sense  or  meaning;  the  Pope  was  no  longer  the 
protector  nor  the  Emperor  the  assailant  of  municipal  free- 
dom, for  municipal  freedom  itself  had  wellnigh  disappeared. 
But  the  old  war-cries  of  the  Church  and  the  Empire  were 
still  repeated  as  they  had  been  three  centuries  before,  and 
the  rival  principles  that  had  once  enlisted  the  noblest 
spirits  of  Italy  on  one  or  other  side  had  sunk  into  a  pre- 
text for  wars  of  aggrandizement  or  of  a  hatred  now  become 
traditional.  That  which  had  been  remarked  long  before 
in  Greece  was  seen  to  be  true  here ;  the  spirit  of  faction 
outlived  the  cause  of  faction,  and  became  itself  the  new  and 
prolific  source  of  a  useless  and  endless  strife. 

After  Frederick  the  Third  no  Emperor  was  crowned  in 
Rome,  and  almost  the  only  trace  of  that  connection  be- 
tween Germany  and  Italy,  to  maintain  which  so  much  had 
been  risked  and  lost,  was  to  be  found  in  the  obstinate 
belief  of  the  later  Hapsburg  Emperors,  that  their  own 
claims,  though  often  purely  dynastic  and  personal,  could 
be  strengthened  by  an  appeal  to  the  imperial  rights  of 
their  predecessors.  Because  Frederick  Barbarossa  had 
overawed  Lombardy  with  a  Transalpine  host  they  fancied 
themselves  the  better  entitled  to  demand  duchies  for 
themselves  and  their  relatives,  and  to  entangle  the  Empire 
in  wars  wherein  no  interest  but  their  own  was  involved. 

The  kingdom  of  Burgundy  or  Aries,  if  it  had  never 
added  much  strength  to  the  Empire,  had  been  useful  as 
an  outwork  against  France.  And  thus  its  loss  —  Dauphine" 
passing  over,  partly  in  A.D.  1350,  finally  in  1457,  Provence 
in  1486 — proved  a  serious  calamity,  for  it  brought  the 
French  nearer  to  Switzerland,  and  opened  to  them  a 
tempting  passage  into  Italy.  The  Emperors  did  not  for  a 
time  expressly  renounce  their  suzerainty  over  these  lands, 
but  if  it  was  hard  to  enforce  a  feudal  claim  over  a  rebellious 
landgrave  in  Germany,  how  much  harder  to  control  a 
vassal  who  was  also  the  mightiest  king  in  Europe. 


THE   RENAISSANCE   AND   ITS   EFFECTS  357 

On  the  north-west  frontier,  the  fall  in  A.D.  1477  of  the  CHAP. 
great  principality  which  the  dukes  of  French  Burgundy  XVIII 
were  building  up  was  seen  with  pleasure  by  the  Rhine- 
landers  whom  Charles  the  Bold,  the  last  duke,  had  inces- 
santly alarmed.  The  duchy  of  Burgundy,  a  part  of  its 
territories,  fell  to  the  king  of  France  as  feudal  suzerain ; 
other  parts,  including  the  Netherlands,  passed  to  the  house 
of  Hapsburg  by  the  marriage  of  Mary,  daughter  of  Duke 
Charles,  to  Maximilian  son  of  Frederick  the  Third  and 
afterwards  Emperor.  The  effect  of  its  fall  was  to  leave 
France  and  Germany  directly  confronting  each  other,  and 
it  was  soon  seen  that  the  balance  of  strength  lay  on  the 
side  of  the  less  numerous  but  better  organized  and  more 
active  nation. 

Switzerland,  too,  could  no  longer  be  considered  a  part  of 
the  Germanic  realm.  The  revolt  of  the  Forest  Cantons, 
in  A.D.  1313,  was  against  the  oppressions  practised  in  the 
name  of  Albert  count  of  Hapsburg,  rather  than  against 
the  legitimate  authority  of  Albert  the  Emperor.  But 
although  several  subsequent  sovereigns,  and  among  them 
conspicuously  Henry  the  Seventh  and  Sigismund,  favoured 
the  Swiss  liberties,  yet  while  the  antipathy  between  the 
Confederates  and  the  territorial  nobility  gave  a  peculiar 
direction  to  their  policy,  the  accession  of  new  cantons  to 
their  body,  and  their  brilliant  success  against  Charles  the 
Bold  in  A.D.  1477,  made  them  proud  of  a  separate  national 
existence,  and  not  unwilling  to  cast  themselves  loose  from 
the  stranded  hulk  of  the  Empire.  Maximilian  tried  to 
conquer  them,  but  after  a  furious  struggle,  in  which  the 
valleys  of  Western  Tyrol  were  repeatedly  laid  waste  by 
the  peasants  of  the  Engadin,  he  was  forced  to  give  way, 
and  in  A.D.  1500  recognized  them  by  treaty  as  practically 
independent.  Not,  however,  till  the  peace  of  Westphalia, 
in  A.D.  1648,  was  the  Swiss  Confederation  in  the  eye  of 


358  THE    HOLY   ROMAN    EMPIRE 

CHAP.  public  law  a  sovereign  state,  and  even  after  that  date  some 

of  the  towns  continued  to  stamp  their  coins  with  the 
double  eagle  of  the  Empire,  as  some  of  the  North  Italian 
cities  also  did  in  days  when  the  power  of  the  Emperor  had 
become  merely  a  memory. 

internal  If  these  losses  of  territory  were  serious,  far  more  serious 

weakness.  wag  ^Q  plight  in  which  Germany  herself  lay.  The  country 
had  now  become  not  so  much  an  Empire  as  an  aggregate 
of  very  many  small  states,  governed  by  princes  who  would 
neither  remain  at  peace  with  each  other  nor  combine  against 
a  foreign  enemy,  under  the  nominal  presidency  of  an  Em- 
peror who  had  little  lawful  authority,  and  could  not  exert 
what  he  had.d  The  electors  had  for  a  time  acted  together 
as  a  body  claiming  to  exert  control  over  imperial  affairs  ; 
and  their  Union  (Kurfurstenverein),  formed  at  Bingen  in 
A.D.  1424,  imposed  stringent  conditions  on  the  newly 
elected  Emperor  Albert  II  in  1438.  But  dissensions 
presently  arose  between  them  ;  and  the  Diet  or  National 
Assembly  was  by  its  constitution  and  its  cumbrous 
methods  of  procedure  unfit  to  introduce  reforms  or  to 
weld  the  component  principalities  into  a  united  realm. 

There  was  another  cause,  besides  those  palpable  and 
obvious  ones  already  enumerated,  to  which  this  state  of 
things  must  be  ascribed.  That  cause  is  to  be  found  in 
the  theory  which  regarded  the  Empire  as  an  international 
power,  supreme  among  Christian  states.  From  the  day 
when  Otto  the  Great  was  crowned  at  Rome,  the  characters 
of  German  king  and  Roman  Emperor  were  united  in  one 
person,  and  it  has  been  shewn  how  that  union  tended 

d  '  Nam  quamvis  Imperatorem  et  regem  et  dominum  vestrum  esse  fatea- 
mini,  precario  tamen  ille  imperare  videtur :  nulla  ei  potentia  est ;  tantum  ei 
paretis  quantum  vultis,  vultis  autem  minimum.'  —  Aeneas  Sylvius  to  the  princes 
of  Germany,  quoted  by  Hippolytus  a  Lapide,  De  Ratione  Status  in  Imperic 
Romano  Germanico. 


THE   RENAISSANCE   AND   ITS  EFFECTS  359 

more  and  more  to  become  a  fusion.     If  the  two  offices,  in  CHAP. 

their  nature  and  origin  so  dissimilar,   had  been  held  by  XVIIL 

different  persons,  the  Roman  Empire  would  most  probably  influence  of 

have  soon  disappeared,  while  the  German  kingdom  grew  thetheory°f 

the  Empire 

into  a  robust  national  monarchy.     The  connection  of  the  &  ^  inter. 


two  gave  a  longer  life  to  the  one  and  a  feebler  life  to  the  national 
other,  while  at  the  same  time  it  transformed  both.    So  lone  t0™*'"?0" 

<=>    the  Germanic 

as  Germany  was  only  one  of  the  countries  that  bowed  be-  constitution. 
neath  their  sceptre  it  was  possible  for  the  Emperors,  though 
we  need  not  suppose  they  troubled  themselves  with  specu- 
lations on  the  matter,  to  distinguish  their  imperial  authority, 
as  international  and  more  than  half  religious,  from  their 
royal,  which  was,  or  was  meant  to  be,  national  and  feudal. 
But  when  within  the  narrowed  bounds  of  Germany  these 
international  functions  had  ceased  to  have  any  meaning, 
when  the  rulers  of  England,  Spain,  France,  Denmark,  Hun- 
gary, Poland,  Italy,  Burgundy,  had  in  succession  repudiated 
imperial  control,  and  the  Lord  of  the  World  found  himself 
obeyed  by  none  but  his  own  people,  he  would  not  sink 
from  being  Lord  of  the  World  into  a  simple  Teutonic  king, 
but  continued  to  play  in  the  more  contracted  theatre  the 
part  which  had  belonged  to  him  in  the  wider.  Thus  did 
Germany  instead  of  Europe  become  the  sphere  of  his  in- 
ternational jurisdiction ;  and  her  electors  and  princes, 
originally  mere  vassals,  no  greater  than  a  count  of  Cham- 
pagne in  France,  or  an  earl  of  Chester  in  England,  stepped 
into  the  place  which  it  had  been  meant  that  the  several 
monarchs  of  Christendom  should  fill.  If  the  effective 
power  of  their  head  had  been  in  the  sixteenth  century 
what  it  was  in  the  eleventh,  the  additional  dignity  so  as- 
signed to  these  magnates  might  have  signified  very  little. 
But  coming  in  to  confirm  and  justify  the  liberties  already 
won,  the  new  theory  of  their  relation  to  the  sovereign  had 
a  great  though  at  the  time  scarcely  perceptible  influence  in 


360 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP. 
XVIII. 


Position  of 
the  Emperor 
in  Germany 
compared 
•with  that 
of  his  pre- 
decessors iit 
Europe. 


changing  the  Germanic  Empire,  as  we  may  now  begin  to 
call  it,  from  a  state  into  a  sort  of  confederation  or  body 
of  states,  united  indeed  for  some  of  the  purposes  of  gov- 
ernment, but  separate  and  independent  for  others  more 
important.  Thus,  and  that  in  its  ecclesiastical  as  well  as 
its  civil  organization,  Germany  became  a  miniature  of 
Christendom.6  The  Pope,  though  he  retained  the  wider 
sway  which  his  rival  had  lost,  was  in  an  especial  manner 
the  head  of  the  German  clergy,  as  the  Emperor  was  of  the 
laity :  the  three  Rhenish  prelates  sat  in  the  supreme  col- 
lege beside  the  four  temporal  electors  :  the  nobility  of 
prince-bishops  and  abbots  was  as  essential  a  part  of  the 
constitution  and  as  influential  in  the  deliberations  of  the 
Diet  as  were  the  dukes,  counts,  and  margraves  of  the  Em- 
pire. The  world-embracing  Christian  state  was  to  have 
been  governed  by  a  hierarchy  of  spiritual  pastors,  whose 
graduated  ranks  of  authority  should  exactly  correspond 
with  those  of  the  temporal  magistrates,  who  were  to  be, 
like  them,  endowed  with  worldly  wealth  and  power,  and  to 
enjoy  a  jurisdiction  co-ordinate  although  distinct.  This  sys- 
tem, which  it  was  in  vain  attempted  to  establish  in  Europe 
during  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries,  was  in  its  main 
features  that  which  prevailed  in  the  Germanic  Empire  from 
the  fourteenth  century  onwards.  And  conformably  to  the 
analogy  which  may  be  traced  between  the  position  of  the 
archdukes  of  Austria  in  Germany  after  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury, and  the  place  which  the  four  Saxon  and  the  two  first 
Franconian  Emperors  had  once  held  in  Europe,  both  being 
recognized  as  titular  leaders  in  all  that  concerned  the  com- 
mon interest,  in  the  one  case  of  the  Christian,  in  the  other 
of  the  whole  German  people,  while  neither  of  them  had 

e  See  Aegidi,  Der  Furstenrath  nach  dem  Luneviller  Frieden ;  a  book 
which  throws  more  light  than  any  other  with  which  I  am  acquainted  on  the 
inner  nature  of  the  Empire. 


THE   RENAISSANCE   AND   ITS   EFFECTS  361 

any  power  of  direct  government  in  the  territories  of  local  CHAP. 
kings  and  potentates  in  the  former  cases,  princes  in  the  XV1II> 
latter  ;  so  the  plan  by  which  those  who  chose  Maximilian 
Emperor  sought  to  strengthen  their  national  monarchy 
was  in  substance  that  which  the  Popes  had  followed  when 
they  conferred  the  crown  of  the  world  on  Charles  and  Otto. 
The  pontiffs  then,  like  the  electors  now,  finding  that  they 
could  not  give  with  the  title  the  power  which  its  functions 
demanded,  were  driven  to  the  expedient  of  selecting  for 
the  office  persons  whose  private  resources  enabled  them  to 
sustain  it  with  dignity.  The  first  Prankish  and  the  first 
Saxon  Emperors  were  chosen  because  they  were  already 
the  mightiest  potentates  in  Europe;  Maximilian  because 
he  was  the  strongest  of  the  German  princes.  The  parallel 
may  be  carried  one  step  further.  Just  as  under  Otto  and 
his  successors  the  Roman  Empire  was  Teutonized,  so  now 
under  the  Hapsburg  dynasty,  from  whose  hands  the  sceptre 
departed  only  once  thenceforth,  the  Teutonic  Empire  tends 
more  and  more  to  lose  itself  in  an  Austrian  monarchy. 

Of   that  monarchy  and  of  the  power  of  the  house  of   Growtkoftht 
Hapsburg,  Maximilian  was,  hardly  less   than  Rudolf   his  HaPsburs 

.__..  ...  .,       influence  in 

ancestor,  the  founder.1  Uniting  in  his  person  those  wide  Germany. 
domains  through  Germany  which  had  been  dispersed 
among  the  collateral  branches  of  his  house,  and  control- 
ling by  his  marriage  with  Mary  of  Burgundy  the  richest 
part  of  the  territories  of  Charles  the  Bold,  he  was  a  prince 
greater  than  any  who  had  sat  on  the  Teutonic  throne  since 
the  death  of  Frederick  the  Second.  But  it  was  as  arch- 
duke of  Austria,  count  of  Tyrol;  duke  of  Styria  and 
Carinthia,  feudal  superior  of  lands  in  Swabia,  Alsace,  and 

f  The  two  immediately  preceding  Emperors,  Albert  II  and  Frederick  III 
(1439-1493),  had  been  Hapsburgs.  It  is  nevertheless  from  Maximilian  and 
his  grandson  Charles  the  Fifth  that  the  ascendancy  of  that  family  must  be 
dated. 


362 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN    EMPIRE 


CHAP. 
XVIII. 


Character 
of  the  epoch 
of  Maxi- 
milian. 


The  dis- 
covery of 
America, 

A.D.  1492. 


Switzerland,  that  he  was  great,  not  as  Roman  Emperor. 
For  just  as  from  him  the  Austrian  monarchy  begins,  so 
with  him  the  Holy  Empire  in  its  old  meaning  ends.  That 
strange  system  of  doctrines,  half  religious,  half  political, 
which  had  supported  it  for  so  many  ages,  was  growing 
obsolete,  and  the  theory  which  had  wrought  such  changes 
on  Germany  and  Europe  passed  ere  long  so  completely 
from  remembrance  that  we  can  now  do  no  more  than  call 
up  a  faint  and  wavering  image  of  what  it  must  once  have 
been. 

For  it  is  not  only  in  imperial  history  that  the  accession 
of  Maximilian  is  a  landmark.  That  time  —  a  time  of  change 
and  movement  in  every  part  of  human  life,  a  time  when 
printing  had  become  common,  and  books  were  no  longer 
confined  to  the  clergy,  when  drilled  troops  were  replacing 
the  feudal  militia,  when  the  use  of  gunpowder  was  chang- 
ing the  face  of  war  —  was  especially  marked  by  one  event, 
to  which  the  history  of  the  world  offers  no  parallel  before 
or  since,  the  discovery  of  America.  The  cloud  which  from 
the  beginning  of  things  had  hung  thick  and  dark  round 
the  borders  of  civilization  was  suddenly  lifted.g  The  feel- 
ing of  mysterious  awe  with  which  men  had  regarded  the 
firm  plain  of  earth  and  her  encircling  ocean  ever  since 
the  days  of  Homer,  vanished  when  astronomers  and  geog- 
raphers taught  them  that  she  was  an  insignificant  globe, 
which,  so  far  from  being  the  centre  of  the  universe,  was 
itself  swept  round  in  the  motion  of  one  of  the  least  of  its 
countless  systems.  The  notions  that  had  hitherto  pre- 
vailed regarding  the  life  of  man  and  his  relations  to  nature 
and  the  supernatural,  were  rudely  shaken  by  the  know- 
ledge that  was  soon  gained  of  tribes  in  every  stage  of 

B  The  discovery  of  the  sea  route  to  India,  an  event  of  scarcely  inferior  impor- 
tance, was  effected  when  Bartholomew  Diaz  rounded  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope 
in  1486  and  Vasco  de  Gama  reached  the  Malabar  coast  in  1493. 


THE   RENAISSANCE   AND   ITS   EFFECTS  363 

culture  and  living  under  every  variety  of  condition,  who  CHAP. 
had  developed  apart  from  all  the  influences  of  the  Eastern  XVHI- 
hemisphere.     In  A.D.   1453  the  capture  of  Constantinople 
and    extinction  of   the  Eastern  Empire  had  dealt  a  fatal 
blow  to  the  prestige  of  tradition  and  an  immemorial  name : 
in  A.D.  1492  there  was  disclosed  a  world  whither  the  eagles 
of  the  all-conquering  Rome  had  never  winged  their  flight, 
and  in  which  the  name  of  Christ  had  never  been  heard.h 
No  one  could  now  have  repeated  the  arguments  of  the  De 
Monarchia. 

Another  influence,  too,  widely  different,  but  not  less  The  Re- 
momentous,  was  beginning  to  spread  from  Italy  beyond  naissance- 
the  Alps.  Since  the  barbarian  tribes  settled  in  the  Roman 
provinces,  no  change  had  come  to  pass  in  Europe  at  all 
comparable  to  that  which  followed  the  diffusion  of  the 
New  Learning  in  the  latter  half  of  the  fifteenth  century. 
Enchanted  by  the  beauty  of  the  ancient  models  of  art  and 
poetry,  more  particularly  those  of  the  Greeks,  men  came 
to  regard  with  aversion  or  contempt  all  that  had  been  done 
or  produced  from  the  days  of  Trajan  to  those  of  Pope 
Nicholas  the  Fifth.  To  them,  the  Latin  style  of  the 
writers  who  lived  after  Tacitus  was  debased :  the  architec- 
ture of  the  Middle  Ages  was  barbarous  :  the  scholastic 
philosophy  was  an  odious  jargon.  Aristotle  himself, 
Greek  though  he  was,  Aristotle  who  had  been  for  three 
centuries  more  than  a  prophet  or  an  apostle,  was  hurled 
from  his  throne,  because  his  name  was  associated  with  the 
dismal  quarrels  of  Thomists  and  Scotists.  That  spirit, 

h  Nevertheless,  fantastic  attempts  were  made  by  some  of  the  earlier  Spanish 
ecclesiastics  in  the  New  World  to  connect  the  native  traditions  with  those 
Christian  legends  which  carried  some  of  the  Apostles  into  the  Far  East. 
There  may  be  seen  in  Tlascala  (in  Mexico)  an  ancient  picture  representing 
St.  Thomas  preaching  to  the  natives  in  the  form  of  the  (so-called)  'Toltec' 
deity  Quetzalcohuatl,  the  Feathered  Serpent. 


364 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP. 
Will. 


Empire 

henceforth 

German. 


whether  we  call  it  analytical  or  sceptical,  or  earthly, 
or  simply  secular,  for  it  is  more  or  less  all  of  these  —  the 
spirit  which  was  the  exact  antithesis  of  mediaeval  mysti- 
cism, had  swept  in  and  carried  men  away,  with  all  the  force 
of  a  pent-up  torrent.  People  were  content  to  gratify  their 
tastes  and  their  senses,  caring  little  for  worship,  and  still 
less  for  doctrine :  their  hopes  and  ideas  were  no  longer 
such  as  had  made  their  forefathers  crusaders  or  ascetics  : 
their  imagination  was  possessed  by  associations  far  differ- 
ent from  those  which  had  inspired  Dante :  they  did  not 
revolt  against  the  Church,  but  they  had  no  enthusiasm 
for  her,  and  they  had  enthusiasm  for  whatever  was  fresh 
and  graceful  and  intelligible.  From  the  gloomy  devotion 
of  the  cloister,  from  the  rude  pleasures  of  the  feudal 
castle,  they  turned  away,  too  indifferent  to  be  hostile. 
And  so,  in  the  midst  of  the  Renaissance,  so,  under  the 
consciousness  that  former  things  were  passing  from  the 
earth,  and  a  new  order  opening,  so,  with  the  other 
beliefs  and  memories  of  the  Middle  Age,  the  shadowy 
rights  of  the  Roman  Empire  melted  away  in  the  fuller 
modern  light.  Here  and  there  a  jurist  muttered  that  no 
neglect  could  destroy  its  universal  supremacy,  or  a  priest 
declaimed  to  listless  hearers  on  its  duty  to  protect  the 
Holy  See  ;  but  to  Germany  it  had  become  an  ancient  de- 
vice for  holding  together  the  discordant  members  of  her 
body,  to  its  possessors  an  engine  for  extending  the  power 
of  the  house  of  Hapsburg. 

Henceforth,  therefore,  we  must  look  upon  the  Holy 
Roman  Empire  as  lost  in  the  Germanic ;  and  after  a  few 
faint  attempts  to  resuscitate  old-fashioned  claims,  nothing 
remains  to  indicate  its  origin  save  a  sounding  title  and  a 
precedence  among  the  states  of  Europe.  It  was  not  that 
the  Renaissance  exerted  any  direct  political  influence 
either  against  the  Empire  or  for  it.  Men  were  too  busy 


THE   RENAISSANCE   AND   ITS   EFFECTS  365 

upon  statues  and  coins  and  manuscripts  to  care  what  befel  CHAP. 
Popes  or  Emperors.     It  acted  rather  by  silently  withdraw-  XVIII> 
ing  the  whole  system  of  doctrines  upon  which  the  Empire 
had  rested,  and  thus  leaving  it,  since  it  had  previously  no 
support  but  that  of  opinion,  without  any  support  at  all. 

During  Maximilian's  eventful  reign  several  efforts  were  Attempts  to 
made  to  construct  a  new  constitution,  but  it  is  to  German  ref°rm  the 

Germanic 

rather  than  to  imperial  history  that  they  properly  belong,  constitution 
Here,  indeed,  the  history  of  the  Holy  Empire  might  close, 
did  not  the  still  unchanged  title  beckon  us  on,  and  were  it 
not  that  the  course  things  took  in  these  later  centuries 
may  be  traced  back  to  causes  dating  from  those  earlier  days 
when  the  name  of  Roman  was  not  wholly  a  mockery. 
One  such  event  of  Maximilian's  time  proved  to  have  a  pro- 
found importance  for  the  future.  Ever  since  the  age  of 
Conrad  III  and  Frederick  I,  when  the  study  of  the  ancient 
Roman  law  was  revived  in  Italy,  the  doctrines  of  that  law 
had  been  making  way  in  Germany,  partly  because  it  was 
conceived  to  have  been  enacted  for  all'time  by  the  remote 
predecessors  of  the  Teutonic  Emperors,  partly  because 
the  German  students  who  resorted  to  the  universities  of 
Italy- — there  was  no  university  in  the  Transalpine  parts  of 
the  Empire  till  Charles  IV  founded  one  at  Prague  in 
1347-1348  —  brought  back  with  them  the  legal  ideas  and 
rules  they  had  learnt  there,  and  applied  these  as  practi- 
tioners or  judges  at  home.  Thus,  except  as  regards  the 
law  of  land  rights,  which  continued  to  be  German,  the 
maxims  of  Roman  law  contained  in  Justinian's  Corpiis  hiris 
had  come  to  be  largely  recognized  in  German  courts, 
though  more  largely  in  the  South  and  West  than  in 
Saxony,  where  a  native  law  book  (the  Sachsenspiegel)  had 
obtained  much  authority.  In  A.D.  1495  an  Imperial  Court 
of  Justice  (' Reichskammergericht ')  for  the  Empire  was 
established  :  and  it  is  from  the  declaration  then  made  of 


366  THE   HOLY    ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  the  validity  of  the  Corpus  luris  as  law  that  the  formal 

XVIIL  acceptance  of  Roman  jurisprudence  is  usually  dated.1  In 
Maximilian's  day  Germany  included  the  Netherlands  :  and 
thus  it  is  that  the  law  of  Rome  has  come  to  prevail  in  the 
Dutch  East  Indies,  in  Ceylon,  and  in  South  Africa.  The 
splendid  labours  of  the  Dutch  jurists  in  the  seventeenth 
and  eighteenth  centuries  and  of  the  German  jurists  in  the 
eighteenth  and  nineteenth  have  had  much  to  do  with  the 
diffusion  of  this  law  over  the  world,  for  it  is  not  only 
the  basis  of  all  the  codes  of  Southern  and  Western 
Europe,  as  well  as  of  the  law  of  Scotland,  but  has  power- 
fully influenced  the  systems  of  Scandinavia,  of  Poland,  of 
Hungary,  and  of  the  Russian  Empire.  It  may  indeed  be 
said  to  divide  with  English  law  the  dominion  of  the  civil- 
ized world. 

The  creation  of  this  Imperial  Chamber  and  the  pro- 
clamation of  a  Public  Peace  did  something  to  secure  the 
preservation  of  civil  order  and  the  better  administration 
of  justice.  But  schemes  still  more  important  failed 
through  the  bad  constitution  of  the  Diet,  and  the  uncon- 
querable jealousy  of  the  Emperor  and  the  Estates.3  Maxi- 
milian refused  to  have  his  prerogative,  indefinite  though 
weak,  restricted  by  the  appointment  of  the  administrative 
council  ('  Reichsregiment ')  which  had  been  advocated  by 
the  Elector  of  Mentz,  and  when  the  Estates  extorted  it 
from  him,  did  his  best  to  ensure  its  failure.  As  a  counter- 
poise he  created  a  sort  of  Privy  Council  ('Hofrath  ')  to  be 
dependent  on  himself  and  to  exercise  both  administrative 

1  The  establishment  of  Roman  jurisprudence  in  Germany  was  not  an  un- 
mixed blessing,  for  it  increased  the  prerogative  of  the  ruler,  raising  him  above 
the  law  ;  it  sanctioned  the  use  of  torture  in  criminal  proceedings  ;  it  made 
the  law  of  high  treason  more  searching  and  severe. 

J  An  account  of  these  attempts  at  constitutional  reform  may  be  found  in 
vol.  i  of  the  new  Cambridge  Modern  History,  chap,  ix  (by  Professor  Tout). 


THE   RENAISSANCE  AND   ITS   EFFECTS  367 

and  judicial  powers.  Abandoned  for  a  time  and  thereafter  CHAP. 
re-established,  this  Aulic  Council  lasted  as  long  as  the  XVIIIt 
Empire  itself,  and  was  sometimes  an  effective  instrument 
in  the  hands  of  the  Hapsburgs,  not  so  much  for  carrying 
out  their  own  projects  as  for  resisting  those  of  others.  In 
the  Diet,  which  consisted  of  three  Colleges,  electors, 
princes,  and  cities,  the  lower  nobility  and  knights  of  the 
Empire  were  unrepresented,  and  naturally  resented  every 
decree  that  affected  their  position,  refusing  to  pay  taxes  in 
voting  which  they  had  no  voice.  The  interests  of  the  princes 
and  the  cities  were  often  irreconcileable,  while  the  strength 
of  the  crown  would  not  have  been  sufficient  to  make  its 
adhesion  to  the  latter  of  any  effect.  The  policy  of  con- 
ciliating the  commons,  which  Sigismund  had  tried,  succeed- 
ing Emperors  seldom  cared  to  repeat,  content  to  gain  their 
point  by  raising  factions  among  the  territorial  magnates, 
and  so  to  stave  off  the  unwelcome  demand  for  reform. 
After  many  earnest  attempts  to  establish  a  representative 
system,  such  as  might  resist  the  tendency  to  local  inde- 
pendence and  cure  the  evils  of  separate  administration,  the 
hope  so  often  baffled  died  away.  Forces  were  too  nearly  Causes  of 
balanced :  the  sovereign  could  not  extend  his  personal  thefatlure 

°  .  r  of  the  projects 

control,  nor  could  the  reforming  party  limit  him  by  a  strong  Of  reform. 
council  of  government,  for  such  a  measure  would  have 
equally  trenched  on  the  independence  of  the  states.  So 
ended  the  first  great  effort  for  German  unity,  interesting 
from  its  bearing  on  the  events  and  aspirations  of  our  own 
day  ;  interesting,  too,  as  giving  the  most  convincing  proof 
of  the  decline  of  the  imperial  office.  For  the  projects  of 
reform  did  not  propose  to  effect  their  objects  by  restor- 
ing to  Maximilian  the  authority  his  predecessors  had  once 
enjoyed,  but  by  setting  up  a  body  which  would  have  resem- 
bled far  more  nearly  the  senate  of  a  federal  state  than 
the  council  of  ministers  which  surround  a  monarch.  The 


368 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP. 
XVIII. 


Germanic 
nationality. 


Change  of 
titles. 


existing  system  developed  itself  further  :  relieved  from  ex- 
ternal pressure,  the  princes  became  more  despotic  in  their 
own  territories :  new  bodies  of  law  grew  up,  and  new  sys- 
tems of  administration  were  introduced :  the  insurgent 
peasantry  were  crushed  down  with  more  confident  harsh- 
ness. Already  had  leagues  of  princes  and  cities  been 
formed k  (that  of  the  Swabian  towns  was  one  of  the 
strongest  forces  in  Germany,  and  often  the  monarch's 
firmest  support) ;  now  alliances  begin  to  be  contracted  by 
some  princes  with  foreign  powers,  and  receive  a  direction 
of  formidable  import  from  the  rivalry  which  the  pretensions 
on  Naples  and  Milan  of  Charles  the  Eighth  and  Lewis  the 
Twelfth  of  France  kindled  between  their  house  and  the 
Austrian.  It  was  no  slight  gain  to  have  friends  in  the  heart 
of  the  enemy's  country,  such  as  French  intrigue  found  in 
the  Elector  Palatine  and  the  count  of  Wiirtemberg. 

Nevertheless  this  was  also  the  era  of  the  first  conscious 
feeling  of  German  nationality,  as  distinct  from  imperial. 
Driven  in  on  all  hands,  with  Italy  and  the  Slavonic  coun- 
tries and  Burgundy  hopelessly  lost,  Teutschland  learnt  to 
separate  itself  from  Welschland.1  The  Empire  became 
the  representative  of  a  narrower  but  more  practicable 
national  union.  It  is  not  a  mere  coincidence  that  at  this 
date  there  appear  several  notable  changes  of  style.  '  Na- 


k  Wenzel  had  encouraged  the  leagues  of  the  cities,  and  incurred  thereby 
the  hatred  of  the  nobles. 

1  The  Germans,  like  our  own  ancestors,  called  foreign,  i.e.  non-Teutonic 
nations,  Welsh  ;  yet  apparently  not  all  such  nations,  but  only  those  which 
they  in  some  way  associated  with  the  Roman  Empire,  the  Cymry  of  Roman 
Britain,  the  Romanized  Celts  of  Gaul,  the  Italians,  the  Wallachs  of  Transylvania 
and  the  two  Danubian  Principalities  which  are  now  the  kingdom  of  Roumania. 
It  does  not  appear  that  either  the  Magyars  or  any  Slavonic  people  were  called 
by  any  form  of  the  name. 

In  the  Icelandic  writings  of  the  thirteenth  century  France  (Francia  occi- 
dentalis)  is  called  '  Valland.' 


THE   RENAISSANCE  ,AND   ITS   EFFECTS  369 

tionis  Teutonicae '  (Teutscher  Nation)  is  added  to  the  CHAP. 
simple  '  sacrum  imperium  Romanum.'  The  title  of  '  Im-  XVIIL 
perator  electus,'  which  Maximilian  obtains  leave  from  Pope 
Julius  the  Second  to  assume,"1  when  the  Venetians  pre- 
vent him  from  reaching  his  capital,  marks  the  practical 
severance  of  Germany  from  Rome.  No  subsequent  Em- 
peror received  his  crown  from  the  ancient  capital  (Charles 
the  Fifth  was  indeed  crowned  by  the  Pope's  hands,  but 
the  ceremony  took  place  at  Bologna,  and  was  therefore  of 
at  least  questionable  validity);  each  assumed  after  his 
German  coronation  the  title  of  Emperor  Elect,"  and  em-  The  title 
ployed  this  in  all  documents  issued  in  his  name.  But  the  '  imperat 
word  'elect'  being  omitted  when  he  was  addressed  by  . 
others,  partly  from  motives  of  courtesy,  partly  because  the 
old  rules  regarding  the  Roman  coronation  were  forgotten 
or  remembered  only  by  antiquaries,  he  was  never  called, 
even  when  formality  was  required,  anything  but  Emperor. 
The  substantial  import  of  another  title  now  first  intro- 
duced is  the  same.  Before  Otto  the  First,  the  Teutonic 
king  had  called  himself  either  '  rex '  alone,  or  '  Francorum 
orientalium  rex,'  or  '  Francorum  atque  Saxonum  rex ' : 
after  A.D.  962,  all  lesser  dignities  had,  for  the  purposes  of 
titular  description,  been  merged  in  the  '  Romanorum  Im- 
perator.'  °  To  this  Maximilian  appended  '  Germaniae  rex,' 
or,  adding  Frederick  the  Second's  bequest,p  '  Konig  in 
Germanien  und  Jerusalem.'  It  has  been  thought  that 
from  a  mixture  of  the  title  king  of  Germany,  and  that  of 
Emperor,  has  been  formed  the  phrase  '  German  Emperor,' 

m  Julius  was  well  pleased  to  give  it,  as  he  had  no  desire  to  see  Maximilian 
in  Italy. 

n  See  as  to  the  coronation  and  the  title  of  '  Elected  Emperor '  (Erwahlter 
Kaiser)  Appendix,  Note  C. 

0  '  Romanorum  rex '  (after  Henry  II)  till  the  coronation  at  Rome. 

P  But  the  Emperor  was  only  one  of  many  claimants  to  this  kingdom  ;  they 
multiplied  as  the  prospect  of  regaining  it  died  away. 
2B 


370  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  or   less    correctly,    '  Emperor   of    Germany.' q     But    more 

xvin.  probably  these  expressions  grew  up  in  people's  mouths  as 
convenient  descriptions  of  the  sovereign  who  was  Emperor 
but  was  practically  no  longer  Roman/ 

That  the  Empire  was  thus  sinking  into  a  merely  German 
power  cannot  be  doubted.  But  it  was  only  natural  that 
those  who  lived  at  the  time  should  not  have  fully  discerned 
the  tendency  of  events.  Again  and  again  did  the  restless 
and  sanguine  Maximilian  propose  the  recovery  of  Bur- 
gundy and  Italy,  —  his  last  scheme,  perhaps  hardly  seri- 
ous, was  to  adjust  the  relations  of  Papacy  and  Empire  by 
becoming  Pope  himself :  nor  were  successive  Diets  less 
zealous  to  check  private  war,  still  the  scandal  of  Germany, 
to  set  right  the  gear  of  the  imperial  chamber,  to  make  the 
imperial  officials  permanent,  and  their  administration  uni- 
form throughout  the  country.  But  while  they  talked  the 
heavens  darkened,  and  the  flood  came  and  destroyed 
them  all. 

i  The  term  '  Emperor  of  Germany '  does  not  occur,  even  in  English  books, 
till  comparatively  recent  times.  English  writers  of  the  seventeenth  century 
always  call  him  '  The  Emperor,'  pure  and  simple,  just  as  they  invariably  say 
'the  French  king,'  not  'the  king  of  France'  (because  the  English  kings  still 
claimed  France).  But  the  phrase  'Empereur  d'Almayne '  may  be  found  in 
very  early  French  writers. 

r  See  Moser,  Romische  Kayscr  ;  Goldast's  and  other  collections  of  imperial 
edicts  and  proclamations. 


EUROPE   A.D.  1519 

SHOWI NO 

THE  HOLY  ROMAN  EMPIRE 

AT  THE   DEATH  OF    MAXIMILIAN    I. 

Tlie  Holy  Roman  Empire  l"~l 

Territories  dependent  on  or  nominally  ^_ 

Empire 

Territories 

tates  c&lour-ed 


English    Miles 


CHAPTER   XIX 

THE     REFORMATION     AND     ITS     EFFECTS     UPON    THE     EMPIRE 

THE  Reformation  falls  to  be  mentioned  here,  not  as  a  CHAP,  xix 
religious  movement,  but  as  the  cause  of  political  changes, 
which  still  further  rent  the  Empire,  and  struck  at  the  root 
of  the  theory  by  which  it  had  been  created  and  upheld. 
Luther  completed  the  work  of  Hildebrand.  Hitherto  it 
had  seemed  not  impossible  to  strengthen  the  German  state 
into  a  monarchy,  compact  if  not  despotic ;  the  very  Diet 
of  Worms,  where  the  monk  of  Wittenberg  proclaimed  to 
an  astonished  Church  and  Emperor  that  the  day  of  spirit- 
ual autocracy  was  past,  had  framed  and  presented  a  fresh 
scheme  for  the  construction  of  a  central  council  of  govern- 
ment. The  great  religious  schism  put  an  end  to  all  such 
hopes,  for  it  became  a  source  of  political  disunion  far  more 
serious  and  permanent  than  any  that  had  existed  before, 
and  it  taught  the  two  sections  into  which  Germany  was 
henceforth  divided  to  regard  each  other  with  feelings  more 
bitter  than  those  of  hostile  nations. 

The  breach  came  at  the  most  unfortunate  time  possible.  Accession  of 
After  an  election,  more  memorable  than  any  preceding,  an    Charles  v 

(ISI9~I558). 

election  in  which  Francis  the  First  of  France  and  Henry 
the  Eighth  of  England  had  been  his  competitors,  a  prince 
had  just  ascended  the  imperial  throne  who  united  domin- 
ions vaster  than  any  Europe  had  seen  since  the  days  of  his 
great  namesake.  Spain  and  Naples,  Flanders,  and  other 
parts  of  the  Burgundian  lands,  as  well  as  large  regions  in 
Eastern  Germany,  obeyed  Charles :  he  drew  inexhaustible 


372  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xix.  revenues  from  a  new  empire  beyond  the  Atlantic.  Such  a 
power,  directed  by  a  mind  more  resolute  and  profound 
than  that  of  Maximilian  his  grandfather,  might  have  well 
been  able,  despite  the  stringency  of  his  coronation  engage- 
ments a  and  the  watchfulness  of  the  electors,b  to  override 
their  extorted  privileges,  and  make  himself  practically  as 
well  as  officially  the  head  of  the  nation.  Charles  the  Fifth, 
though  from  the  coldness  of  his  manner c  and  his  Flemish 
speech  never  a  favourite  among  the  Germans,  was  in  point 
of  fact  far  stronger  than  Maximilian  or  any  other  Emperor 
who  had  reigned  for  three  centuries.  In  Italy  he  suc- 
ceeded, after  long  struggles  with  the  Pope  and  the  French, 
in  rendering  himself  supreme :  England  he  knew  how  to 
lead,  by  flattering  Henry  and  cajoling  Wolsey :  from  no 
state  but  France  had  he  serious  opposition  to  fear.  To 
this  strength  his  imperial  dignity  was  indeed  a  mere  orna- 
ment :  its  sources  were  the  infantry  of  Spain,  the  looms  of 
Flanders,  the  barbaric  treasures  of  Mexico  and  Peru. 
But  a  control  once  re-established  would  soon  have  been 
legitimated  by  the  rights  which  the  imperial  title  seemed 
to  carry  with  it ;  and  as  the  first  Charles  had  veiled  the 
terror  of  the  Frankish  sword  under  the  mask  of  Roman 
election,  so  might  his  successor  sway  a  hundred  provinces 
with  the  sole  name  of  Roman  Emperor,  and  transmit  to  his 
race  a  dominion  as  wide  and  more  enduring. 

One  is  tempted  to  speculate  as  to  what  might  have  hap- 

•  The  so-called  '  Wahlcapitulation.' 

b  The  electors  long  refused  to  elect  Charles,  dreading  the  power  which  his 
hereditary  dominions  gave  him,  and  were  at  last  induced  to  do  so  only  by 
their  overmastering  fear  of  the  Turks. 

c  Nearly  all  the  Hapsburgs  seem  to  have  wanted  that  sort  of  genial  hearti- 
ness which,  apt  as  it  is  to  be  stifled  by  education  in  the  purple,  has  neverthe- 
less been  possessed  by  several  other  royal  lines,  and  has  often  helped  them; 
as  for  instance  by  more  than  one  prince  of  the  houses  of  Brunswick  and 
Hohenzollern. 


THE   REFORMATION   AND   ITS   EFFECTS  373 

pened  had   Charles  espoused  the   reforming  cause.     His  CHAP,  xix 

reverence  for  the  Pope's  person  is  sufficiently  seen  in  the 

sack  of  Rome  and  the   captivity  of  Pope    Clement  VII ; 

the  traditions  of  his  office  might  have  led  him  to  tread  in   o«rto*. 

the  steps  of  the  Henrys' and  the  Fredericks,  into  which  wards  the 

even  the  superstitious  Lewis  the  Fourth  and  the  unstable  reli^lous 

movement. 

Sigismund  had  sometimes  ventured ;  the  awakening  zeal 
of  the  German  people,  exasperated  by  the  exactions  of  the 
Romish  court,  would  have  strengthened  his  hands,  and 
enabled  him,  while  moderating  the  excesses  of  change,  to 
fix  his  throne  on  the  deep  foundations  of  national  love. 
It  may  well  be  doubted  —  Englishmen  at  least  have  reason 
for  the  doubt  —  whether  the  Reformation  would  not  have 
lost  as  much  as  it  could  have  gained  by  being  entangled 
in  the  meshes  of  royal  patronage.  But,  setting  aside 
Charles's  personal  leaning  to  the  old  faith,  and  forgetting 
that  he  was  king  of  the  most  bigoted  race  in  Europe,  his 
position  as  Emperor  made  him  almost  perforce  the  Pope's 
ally.  The  Empire  had  been  recalled  into  being  by  Rome, 
had  vaunted  the  protection  of  the  Apostolic  See  as  its 
highest  earthly  privilege,  had  latterly  been  wont,  especially 
in  Hapsburg  hands,  to  lean  on  the  Papacy  for  support. 
Itself  founded  entirely  on  prescription  and  the  traditions 
of  immemorial  reverence,  how  could  it  abandon  the  cause 
which  the  longest  prescription  and  the  most  solemn  author- 
ity had  combined  to  consecrate  ?  With  the  German  clergy, 
despite  occasional  quarrels,  it  had  been  on  better  terms 
than  with  the  lay  aristocracy;  their  heads  had  been  the 
chief  ministers  of  the  crown  ;  the  advocacies  of  their  abbeys 
were  the  last  source  of  imperial  revenue  to  disappear.  To 
turn  against  them  now,  when  furiously  assailed  by  here- 
tics ;  to  abrogate  claims  hallowed  by  antiquity  and  a  hun- 
dred laws,  would  be  to  pronounce  its  own  sentence,  and 
the  fall  of  the  eternal  city's  spiritual  dominion  must  in- 


3/4  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xix.  volve  the  fall  of  what  still  professed  to  be  her  temporal. 
Charles  would  have  been  glad  to  see  some  abuses  cor- 
rected ;  but  a  broad  line  of  policy  was  called  for,  and  he 
cast  in  his  lot  with  the  Catholics.4 

Ultimate  Qf  many  momentous  results  only  a  few  need  be  noticed 

repressive  "  nere-  The  reconstruction  of  the  old  imperial  system  upon 
policy  of  the  basis  of  Hapsburg  power,  proved  in  the  end  impossible. 
Yet  for  some  years  it  had  seemed  actually  accomplished. 
When  the  Smalkaldic  league  had  been  dissolved  and  its 
leaders  captured,  the  whole  country  lay  prostrate  before 
Charles.  He  overawed  the  Diet  at  Augsburg  by  his 
Spanish  soldiery :  he  forced  formularies  of  doctrine  upon 
the  vanquished  Protestants  :  he  set  up  and  pulled  down 
whom  he  would  throughout  Germany,  amid  the  muttered 
discontent  of  his  own  partizans.  Then,  as  in  the  begin- 
ning of  the  year  1552  he  lay  at  Innsbruck,  fondly  dream- 
ing that  his  work  was  done,  waiting  the  spring  weather  to 
cross  to  Trent,  where  the  Catholic  fathers  had  again  met 
to  settle  the  faith  of  the  world,  news  was  suddenly  brought 
that  North  Germany  was  in  arms,  and  that  the  revolted 
Maurice  of  Saxony  had  seized  Donauwerth,  and  was  hurry- 
ing through  the  Bavarian  Alps  to  surprise  his  sovereign.6 
Charles  rose  and  fled  south  over  the  snows  of  the  Brenner, 
then  eastwards,  under  the  blood-red  cliffs  of  dolomite  that 
wall  in  the  Pusterthal,  far  away  into  the  silent  valleys  of 

d  Padre  Tosti,  Prolegomeni  alia  Storia  Universale  della  Chiesa,  suggests 
that  Sigismund  may  have  foreseen  this  danger :  '  II  grido  della  riforma  cleri- 
cale  percuoteva  le  cime  del  laicale  potere  e  rimbalzava  per  tutta  la  gerarchia 
sociale.  Se  1'  imperadore  Sigismondo  nel  consilio  di  Costanza  non  avesse 
fiutate  queste  consequenze  nella  eresia  di  Hus  e  di  Girolamo  di  Praga,  forse 
non  avrebbe  con  tanto  zelo  mandati  alle  fiamme  que'  novatori.  Rotto  da 
Lutero  il  vincolo  di  suggezione  al  Papa  ed  ai  preti  in  fatti  di  religione,  avvenne 
che  anche  quello  che  sommetteva  il  vassallo  al  barone,  il  barone  al  impera- 
dore, si  allentasse.'  —  Vol.  ii.  p.  398. 

e  Maurice  is  reported  to  have  been  just  as  well  pleased  at  Charles's  escape. 
'  I  have  no  cage  big  enough,'  said  he,  '  for  such  a  bird.' 


THE   REFORMATION   AND   ITS   EFFECTS  375 

Carinthia  :  the  council  of  Trent  broke  up  in  consternation  :  CHAP.  xrx. 
Europe  saw  and  the  Emperor  acknowledged  that  in  his 
fancied  triumph  over  the  spirit  of  revolution  he  had  done 
no  more  than  block  up  for  the  moment  an  irresistible  tor- 
rent. When  this  last  effort  to  produce  religious  uniformity 
by  violence  had  failed  as  hopelessly  as  the  previous  devices 
of  holding  discussions  of  doctrine  and  calling  a  general 
council,  a  sort  of  armistice  was  agreed  to  in  1555,  which 
lasted  in  mutual  fear  and  suspicion  for  more  than  sixty 
years.  Four  years  after  this  disappointment  of  the  hopes 
and  projects  which  had  occupied  his  busy  life,  Charles, 
weighed  down  by  cares  and  with  the  shadow  of  coming 
death  already  upon  him,  resigned  the  sovereignty  of  Spain 
and  the  Indies,  of  Flanders  and  Naples,  into  the  hands  of 
his  son  Philip  the  Second  ;  while  the  imperial  sceptre 
passed  to  his  brother  Ferdinand,  who  had  been  some  time 
before  (1531)  chosen  king  of  the  Romans.  Ferdinand  Ferdinand /, 
was  content  to  leave  things  much  as  he  found  them,  and  I,^s8~is674' 

Maximilian 

the  amiable   Maximilian  II,  who  succeeded  him,  though  77,1564-1576 
personally  well   inclined  to  the   Protestants,  saw  himself  Destructiotl 
fettered  by  his  position  and  his  allies,  and  could  do  little  manicstate- 
or  nothing  to  quench  the  flame  of  religious  and  political  system. 
hatred.     Germany  remained  divided  into  two  omnipresent 
factions,  and  so  further  than  ever  from  harmonious  action, 
or  a  tightening  of  the  long-loosened  bond  of  allegiance  to 
the  imperial  crown.     The  states  of  each  creed  being  now 
gathered   into   two   antagonistic    leagues,  there  could  no 
longer  be  a  recognized  centre  of  authority  for  judicial  or 
administrative  purposes.     Least  of  all  could  a  centre  be 
sought  in  the  Emperor,  the  leader  of  the  papal  party,  the 
suspected  foe  of  every  Protestant.     Too  closely  watched 
to  do  anything  of  his  own  authority,  too  much  committed 
to  one  party  to  be  accepted  as  a  mediator  by  the  other,  he 
was  driven  to  attain  his  own  objects  by  falling  in  with  the 


376 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  xix.  schemes  and  furthering  the  selfish  ends  of  his  adherents, 
by  becoming  the  accomplice  or  the  tool  of  the  Jesuits. 
The  Lutheran  princes  addressed  themselves  to  reduce  a 
power  of  which  they  had  still  an  over-sensitive  dread,  and 
found  when  they  exacted  from  each  successive  sovereign 
•  engagements  more  stringent  than  his  predecessor's,  that  in 
this,  and  this  alone,  their  Catholic  brethren  were  not  un- 
willing to  join  them.  Thus  obliged  to  strip  himself  one 
by  one  of  the  ancient  privileges  of  his  crown,  the  Emperor 
came  to  have  little  influence  on  the  government  except 
that  which  his  intrigues  might  exercise.  Nay,  it  became 
almost  impossible  to  maintain  a  government  at  all.  For 
when  the  Reformers  found  themselves  outvoted  at  the 
Diet,  they  declared  that  in  matters  of  religion  a  majority 
ought  not  to  bind  a  minority.  As  the  measures  were  few 
which  did  not  admit  of  being  reduced  to  this  category,  for 
whatever  benefited  the  Emperor  or  any  other  Catholic 
prince  injured  the  Protestants,  nothing  could  be  done  save 
by  the  assent  of  two  bitterly  hostile  factions.  Thus  scarce 
anything  was  done ;  and  even  the  courts  of  justice  were 
stopped  by  the  disputes  that  attended  the  appointment  of 
every  judge  or  assessor. 

In  the  foreign  politics  of  Germany  another  result  fol- 
lowed. Inferior  in  military  force  and  organization,  the 
Protestant  princes  at  first  provided  for  their  safety  by 
forming  leagues  among  themselves.  The  device  was  an 
old  one,  and  had  been  employed  by  the  monarch  himself 
before  now,  in  despair  at  the  effete  and  cumbrous  forms  of 
the  imperial  system.  Soon  they  began  to  look  beyond  the 
Vosges,  and  found  that  France,  burning  heretics  at  home, 
was  only  too  happy  to  smile  on  free  opinions  elsewhere. 
The  alliance  was  easily  struck ;  Henry  the  Second  assumed 
in  1552  the  title  of  '  Protector  of  the  Germanic  liberties," 
and  a  pretext  for  interference  was  never  wanting  in  future. 


Alliance  of 
the  Protes- 
tants with. 
France. 


THE    REFORMATION   AND   ITS    EFFECTS  377 


These  were  some  of  the  visible  political  consequences  CHAP.  xix. 
of   the  great   religious   schism  of   the    sixteenth  century.    The  Refor- 
But  beyond  and  above  them  there  was  a  change  more  matlon  sftrit> 

.  .       and  its  injlu- 

momentous  than  any  of  its  immediate  results.  There  is  mce  vpon  the 
perhaps  no  event  in  history  which  has  been  represented 
in  so  great  a  variety  of  lights  as  the  Reformation.  It  has 
been  called  a  revolt  of  the  laity  against  the  clergy,  or  of 
the  Teutonic  races  against  the  Italians,  or  of  the  king- 
doms of  Europe  against  the  universal  monarchy  of  the 
Popes.  Some  have  seen  in  it  only  a  burst  of  long- 
repressed  anger  at  the  luxury  of  the  prelates  and  the 
manifold  abuses  of  the  ecclesiastical  system ;  others  a 
renewal  of  the  youth  of  the  Church  by  a  return  to  primi- 
tive forms  of  doctrine.  All  these  indeed  to  some  extent 
it  was ;  but  it  was  also  something  more  profound,  and 
fraught  with  mightier  consequences  than  any  of  them.  It 
was  in  its  essence  the  assertion  of  the  principle  of  individ- 
uality —  that  is  to  say,  of  true  spiritual  freedom.  Hith- 
erto the  personal  consciousness  had  been  a  faint  and  broken 
reflection  of  the  universal ;  obedience  had  been  held  the 
first  of  religious  duties ;  truth  had  been  conceived  as 
a  something  external  and  positive,  which  the  priesthood 
who  were  its  stewards  were  to  communicate  to  the  passive 
layman,  and  in  the  formal  and  unquestioning  acceptance 
of  which,  even  if  not  fully  comprehended  as  truth,  there 
lay  a  saving  virtue.  The  great  principles  which  mediaeval 
Christianity  still  cherished  were  obscured  by  the  limited, 
rigid,  almost  sensuous  forms  which  had  been  forced  on 
them  in  times  of  ignorance  and  barbarism.  That  which 
was  in  its  nature  abstract,  had  been  able  to  survive  only 
by  taking  a  concrete  expression.  The  universal  con- 
sciousness became  the  Visible  Church  :  the  Visible  Church 
hardened  into  a  government  and  degenerated  into  a  hie- 
rarchy. Holiness  of  heart  and  life  was  sought  by  outward 


378  THE    HOLY   ROMAN    EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xix.  works,  by  penances  and  pilgrimages,  by  gifts  to  the  poor 
and  to  the  clergy,  wherein  there  might  dwell  little  enough 
of  a  charitable  mind.  The  presence  of  divine  truth  among 
men  was  symbolized  under  one  aspect  by  the  existence 
on  earth  of  an  infallible  Vicar  of  God,  the  Pope ;  under 
another,  by  the  reception  of  the  present  Deity  in  the  sac- 
rifice of  the  mass ;  in  a  third,  by  the  doctrine  that  the 
priest's  power  to  remit  sins  and  administer  the  sacraments 
depended  upon  a  transmission  of  miraculous  gifts  unbroken 
from  the  time  of  the  Apostles.  All  this  system  of  doc- 
trine, which  might,  but  for  the  position  of  the  Church  as  a 
worldly  and  therefore  obstructive  power,  have  gradually 
expanded,  renewed,  and  purified  itself  during  the  four 
centuries  that  had  elapsed  since  its  completion,,1  and  thus 
remained  in  harmony  with  the  growing  intelligence  of 
mankind,  was  suddenly  rent  in  pieces  by  the  convulsion 
of  the  Reformation,  and  presently  flung  away  by  those 
among  the  peoples  of  Europe  which  have  thenceforth  been 
usually,  if  not  always,  the  foremost  in  thought  and  action. 
The  leaders  of  the  new  movement  sought  to  supersede 
that  which  was  external  and  concrete  by  that  which  was 
inward  and  spiritual.  They  proclaimed  that  the  individ- 
ual spirit,  while  it  continued  to  mirror  itself  in  the  world- 
spirit,  had  nevertheless  an  independent  existence  as  a 
centre  of  self-issuing  force,  and  was  to  be  in  all  things 
active  rather  than  passive.  Truth  was  no  longer  to  be 
truth  to  the  soul  until  it  should  have  been  by  the  soul  rec- 
ognized, and  in  some  measure  even  created ;  but  when  so 
recognized  and  felt,  it  was,  under  the  form  of  faith,  to 
transcend  outward  works  and  to  transform  the  dogmas  of 
the  understanding ;  it  was  to  become  the  living  principle 
within  each  man's  breast,  infinite  itself,  and  expressing 

f  The  completion  can  hardly  be  deemed  final  until  the  eleventh  century,  in 
which  transubstantiation  was  definitely  established  as  a  dogma. 


THE   REFORMATION   AND   ITS   EFFECTS  379 

itself  infinitely  through  his  thoughts  and  acts.     He  who  as  CHAP.  xix. 
a  spiritual  being  was  no  longer  to  be  guided  by  the  priest, 
but  brought  into  direct  relation  with  the  Divinity,  needed 
not,  as  heretofore,  to  be  enrolled  a  member  of  a  visible  con- 
gregation of  his  fellows,  that  he  might  live  a  pure  and  useful 
life  among  them.     Thus  among  the  peoples  that  accepted  Effect  of  the 
the  Reformation  the  Visible  Church  as  well  as  the  priest-  Reformfon 

r  on  the  doc- 

hood  lost  that  paramount  importance  which  had  hitherto   trine* regard* 

belonged  to  it,  and  sank  from  being  the  depositary  of  all  ins the  Visi- 
religious  tradition,  the  source  and  centre  of  religious  life, 
the  arbiter  of  eternal  happiness  or  misery,  into  a  mere 
association  of  Christian  men,  for  the  expression  of  mutual 
sympathy  and  the  better  attainment  of  certain  common 
ends.  Like  those  other  doctrines  which  were  now  assailed 
by  the  German,  Swiss,  and  British  Reformers,  this  mediae- 
val view  of  the  nature  of  the  Visible  Church  had  been 
naturally,  and  so,  it  may  be  said,  necessarily  developed 
between  the  third  and  the  twelfth  century,  and  must 
therefore  have  represented  the  thoughts  and  satisfied 
the  wants  of  those  times.  By  the  Visible  Church  the 
flickering  lamp  of  knowledge  and  literary  culture,  as  well 
as  of  religion,  had  been  fed  and  tended  through  the  long 
night  of  the  Dark  Ages.  But  the  form  which  the  Chris- 
tian Church  had  taken,  though  clothed  with  external 
splendour  and  hallowed  by  immemorial  traditions,  had 
now  been  interpenetrated  and  overgrown  by  abuses  and 
corruptions  which  seemed  to  have  so  become  a  part  of 
its  being  as  to  make  it  capable  of  no  further  healthy  devel- 
opement,  and  unable  to  satisfy  minds  which  in  growing 
stronger  had  grown  more  conscious  of  their  strength.  Be- 
fore the  awakened  zeal  of  the  Northern  nations  it  stood 
a  cold  and  lifeless  system,  whose  organization  as  a  hie- 
rarchy checked  the  free  activity  of  thought,  whose  bestowal 
of  worldly  power  and  wealth  on  spiritual  pastors  drew 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


Consequent 
effect  upon 
the  Empire. 


CHAP.  xix.  them  away  from  their  proper  duties,  and  which  by  main- 
taining alongside  of  the  civil  magistracy  a  co-ordinate  and 
rival  government,  maintained  also  that  view  of  the  sepa- 
ration of  the  spiritual  element  in  man  from  the  secular, 
which  had  been  so  complete  and  so  pernicious  during  the 
Middle  Ages,  which  debases  life,  and  severs  religion  from 
morality. 

To  dwell  upon  this  fundamental  change  in  the  con- 
ception of  the  Visible  Church  is  not  foreign  to  the  present 
subject.  The  Holy  Empire  is  but  another  name  for  the 
Visible  Church.  It  has  been  shewn  already  how  mediaeval 
theory  constructed  the  civil  on  the  model  of  the  ecclesi- 
astical society ;  how  the  Roman  Empire  was  the  shadow 
of  the  Popedom  —  designed  to  rule  men's  bodies  as  the 
pontiff  ruled  their  souls.  Both  alike  claimed  obedience 
on  the  ground  that  Truth  is  One,  and  that  where  there 
is  One  faith  there  must  be  One  government^  And, 
therefore,  since  it  was  this  very  principle  of  Formal 
Unity  that  the  Reformation  overthrew,  it  became  a  revolt 
against  the  principle  of  authority  in  all  its  forms ;  it 
erected  the  standard  of  civil  as  well  as  of  religious  liberty, 
since  both  of  .them  are  needed,  though  needed  in  a 
different  measure,  for  the  worthy  developement  of  the 
individual  spirit.  The  Empire  had  never  been  conspicu- 
ously the  antagonist  of  popular  freedom,  and  was,  even 
under  Charles  the  Fifth,  far  less  formidable  to  the  com- 
monalty than  were  the  territorial  princes  of  Germany. 
But  submission,  and  submission  on  the  ground  of  in- 
defeasible transmitted  right,  upon  the  ground  of  Catholic 
traditions  and  the  duty  of  the  Christian  magistrate  to 
suffer  heresy  and  schism  as  little  as  the  parallel  sins  of 
treason  and  rebellion,  had  been  its  constant  claim  and 
watchword.  Since  the  days  of  Julius  Caesar  it  had  passed 

*  See  the  passage  quoted  in  note  m,  p.  99  ;   and  see  also  p.  ill. 


THE   REFORMATION   AND   ITS   EFFECTS  381 

through  many  phases,  and  in  so  far  as  it  was  a  Ger-  CHAP,  xix, 
manic  monarchy,  it  had  recognized  the  rights  of  the 
vassals  and  had  admitted  the  delegates  of  the  cities  to 
a  place  in  the  national  assembly.  But  these  principles 
of  the  mediaeval  monarchy,  half  feudal,  half  drawn  from 
Teutonic  antiquity,  principles  themselves  now  decaying, 
had  little  to  do  with  the  religious  conceptions  and  the 
Roman  traditions  on  which  the  theory  of  the  Empire 
rested.  In  that  theory  there  was  no  place  for  popular 
rights.  And  hence  the  indirect  tendency  of  the  Reforma- 
tion to  narrow  the  province  of  government  and  exalt  the 
privileges  of  the  subject  was  as  plainly  adverse  to  what 
one  may  call  the  Imperial  Idea  as  the  Protestant  claim 
of  the  right  of  private  judgement  was  to  the  pretensions  of 
the  Papacy  and  the  priesthood. 

The  remark  must  not  be  omitted  in  passing,  how  much  immediate 
less  than  might  have  been  expected  the  religious  move-  mf-uenc<-0f 

r  °  the  Reforma? 

ment  did  at  first  actually  effect  in  the  way  of  promoting  tiononpoiiti- 
either  political  progress  or  freedom  of  conscience.     The  caiandreii- 
habits  of  centuries  were  not  to  be  unlearnt  in  a  few  years,  gtot 
and  it  was  natural   that  ideas   struggling  into  existence 
and  activity  should  work  erringly  and  imperfectly  for  a 
time.     By  a  few  inflammable  minds  liberty  was  carried 
into  antinomianism,  and  produced  the  wildest  excesses  of 
life  and  doctrine.     Several  fantastic  sects  arose,  refusing 
to  conform  to  the  ordinary  rules  without  which  human 
society  could  not  subsist.     But  these  commotions  neither 
spread  widely  nor  lasted  long.     Far  more  pervading  and 
more  remarkable  was  the  other  error,  if  that  can  be  called 
an  error  which  was  the  almost  unavoidable  result  of  the 
circumstances   of    the   time.     The   principles   which   had   Conduct  of 
led  the  Protestants  to  sever  themselves  from  the  Roman  s'ates °' 
Church,    should    have    taught    them    to    bear    with    the 
opinions  of  others,  and  warned  them  from  the  attempt  to 


382  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xix.  connect  agreement  in  doctrine  or  manner  of  worship  with 
the  indispensable  forms  of  secular  government.  Still  less 
ought  they  to  have  enforced  that  agreement  by  civil 
penalties ;  for  faith,  upon  their  own  shewing,  had  no 
value  save  when  it  was  freely  given.  A  church  which 
does  not  claim  to  be  infallible  is  bound  to  allow  that  some 
part  of  the  truth  may  possibly  be  with  its  adversaries. 
A  church  which  permits  or  encourages  human  reason 
to  apply  itself  to  revelation  has  no  right  first  to  argue 
with  people  and  then  to  punish  them  if  they  are  not  con- 
vinced. But  whether  it  was  that  men  only  half  saw  what 
they  had  done,  or  that  finding  it  hard  enough  to  unrivet 
priestly  fetters,  they  welcomed  all  the  aid  a  temporal 
prince  could  give,  the  actual  consequence  was  that  reli- 
gion, or  rather  theological  creeds,  began  to  be  involved 
with  politics  more  closely  than  had  ever  been  the  case 
before.  Through  the  greater  part  of  Christendom  wars 
of  religion  raged  for  a  century  or  more,  and  down  to  our 
own  days  feelings  of  religious  antipathy  continued  to 
affect  the  relations  of  the  Powers  of  Europe.  In  almost 
every  country  the  form  of  doctrine  which  triumphed 
associated  itself  with  the  state,  and  maintained  the  des- 
potic system  of  the  Middle  Ages,  while  it  forsook  the 
grounds  on  which  that  system  had  been  based.  It  was 
thus  that  there  arose  National  Churches,  which  were  to 
be  to  the  several  Protestant  countries  of  Europe  that 
which  the  Church  Catholic  had  been  to  the  world  at 
large;  churches,  that  is  to  say,  each  of  which  was  to  be 
co-extensive  with  its  respective  state,  was  to  enjoy  landed 
wealth  and  exclusive  political  privilege,  and  was  to  be 
armed  with  coercive  powers  against  recusants.  It  was 
not  altogether  easy  to  find  a  set  of  theoretical  principles 
on  which  such  churches  might  be  made  to  rest,  for  they 
could  not,  like  the  old  Church,  point  to  the  historical 


THE   REFORMATION   AND   ITS   EFFECTS  383 

transmission  of  their  doctrines;  they  could  not  claim  to  CHAP.  xix. 
have  in  any  one  man  or  body  of  men  an  infallible  organ  of 
divine  truth ;  they  could  not  even  fall  back  upon  general 
councils,  or  the  argument,  whatever  it  may  be  worth, 
*  Securus  iudicat  orbis  terrarum.'  But  in  practice  these 
difficulties  were  soon  got  over,  for  the  dominant  party  in 
each  state,  if  it  did  not  claim  to  be  infallible,  was  at  any 
rate  quite  sure  that  it  was  right,  and  could  attribute  the 
resistance  of  other  sects  to  nothing  but  moral  obliquity. 
The  will  of  the  sovereign,  as  in  England,  or  the  will 
of  the  majority,  as  in  Holland,  the  Scandinavian  coun- 
tries and  Scotland,  imposed  upon  each  country  a  peculiar 
form  of  worship,  and  kept  up  the  practices  of  mediaeval 
intolerance  without  their  justification.  Persecution,  which 
might  be  at  least  palliated  in  an  infallible  Catholic  and 
Apostolic  Church,  was  peculiarly  odious  when  practised 
by  those  who  were  not  catholic,  who  were  no  more 
apostolic  than  their  neighbours,  and  who  had  just  revolted 
from  the  most  ancient  and  venerable  authority  in  the 
name  of  rights  which  they  now  denied  to  others.  If 
union  with  the  Visible  Church  by  participation  in  a 
material  sacrament  be  necessary  to  eternal  life,  perse- 
cution may  be  held  a  duty,  a  kindness  to  perishing  souls. 
But  if  the  kingdom  of  heaven  be  in  every  sense  a  king- 
dom of  the  spirit,  if  saving  faith  be  possible  out  of  one 
visible  body  and  under  a  diversity  of  external  forms,  if 
the  sense  of  the  written  revelation  of  God  be  ascertain- 
able  by  the  exercise  of  human  reason,  guided  by  the 
Divine  breath  which  bloweth  where  it  listeth,  persecution 
becomes  at  once  a  crime  and  a  folly.  Therefore  the 
intolerance  of  Protestant  rulers,  though  the  forms  it  took 
were  less  cruel  than  those  practised  by  the  Roman 
Catholics,  was  also  far  less  defensible ;  for  it  had  seldom 
anything  better  to  allege  on  its  behalf  than  motives  of 


384  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  XIX.  political  expediency,  or,  more  often,  the  headstrong 
passion  of  a  ruler  or  a  faction  to  silence  the  expressions 
of  any  opinions  but  their  own.  To  enlarge  upon  this 
theme,  did  space  permit  it,  would  not  be  to  digress  from 
the  proper  subject  of  this  narrative.  For  the  Empire,  as 
has  been  said  more  than  once  already,  was  far  less  an 
institution  than  a  theory  or  doctrine.  And  hence  it 
is  not  too  much  to  say,  that  the  ideas  which  have  but 
recently  ceased  to  prevail  in  Western  Europe  regarding 
the  duty  of  the  magistrate  to  compel  uniformity  in  doc- 
trine and  worship  by  the  civil  arm,  may  all  be  traced  to 
the  relation  which  theory  established  between  the  Roman 
Church  and  the  Roman  Empire  ;  to  the  conception,  in 
fact,  of  an  Empire  Church  itself. 

influence  of        Two  of  the  ways  in  which  the  Reformation  affected  the 
the  Reforma-   jrmpire  have  been  now  described,  its  immediate  political 

tion  on  the 

name  and  results,  and  its  far  more  profound  doctrinal  importance, 
associations  as  implanting  new  ideas  regarding  the  nature  of  freedom 
Empire,  an(i  tne  province  of  government.  A  third,  though  ap- 
parently almost  superficial,  cannot  be  omitted.  Its  name 
and  its  traditions,  little  as  they  retained  of  their  former 
magic  power,  were  still  such  as  to  excite  the  antipathy  of 
the  German  reformers.  The  form  which  the  doctrine  of 
the  supreme  importance  of  one  faith  and  one  body  of  the 
faithful  had  taken  was  the  dominion  of  the  ancient 
capital  of  the  world  through  her  spiritual  head,  the 
Roman  bishop,  and  her  temporal  head,  the  Emperor. 
As  the  names  of  Roman  and  Christian  had  been  once 
convertible,  so  long  afterwards  were  those  of  Roman  and 
Catholic.  The  Reformation,  separating  into  its  parts 
what  had  hitherto  been  one  conception,  attacked  Roman- 
ism if  not  Catholicity,  and  formed  religious  communities 
which,  while  continuing  to  call  themselves  Christian,  re- 
pudiated the  form  with  which  Christianity  had  been  so 


THE   REFORMATION   AND   ITS   EFFECTS  385 

long  identified  in  the  West.  As  the  Empire  was  founded  CHAP.  xix. 
upon  the  assumption  that  the  limits  of  Church  and  State 
are  exactly  co-extensive,  a  change  which  withdrew  half 
of  its  subjects  from  the  one  body  while  they  remained 
members  of  the  other,  transformed  it  utterly,  destroyed 
the  meaning  and  value  of  its  old  arrangements,  and  forced 
the  Emperor  into  a  strange  and  incongruous  position. 
To  his  Protestant  subjects  he  was  merely  the  titular  head 
of  the  nation,  to  the  Catholics  he  was  also  the  Defender 
and  Advocate  of  their  church.  Thus  from  being  chief  of 
the  whole  state  he  became  the  chief  of  a  party  within  it, 
the  Corpus  Catholicorum,  as  opposed  to  the  Corpus 
Evangelicorum ;  he  lost  what  had  been  hitherto  his  most 
sacred  claim  to  the  obedience  of  the  subject ;  the  awakened 
feeling  of  German  nationality  was  driven  into  hostility  to 
an  institution  whose  title  and  history  seemed  to  bind  it 
to  the  centre  of  foreign  tyranny.  After  exulting  for  seven 
centuries  in  the  heritage  of  Roman  rule,  half  of  the  nation 
cherished  again  the  feeling  with  which  their  ancestors 
had  resisted  Julius  Caesar  and  Germanicus.  Two  mutually 
repugnant  systems  could  not  exist  side  by  side  without 
striving  to  destroy  one  another.  The  instincts  of  theo- 
logical sympathy  overcame  the  duties  of  political  alle- 
giance, and  men  who  were  subjects  both  of  the  Emperor 
and  of  their  local  prince,  gave  most  of  their  loyalty  to 
him  who  professed  their  doctrines  and  protected  their 
worship.  For  in  North  Germany  princes  as  well  as 
people  were  mostly  Lutheran :  in  the  Southern  and 
especially  the  South-eastern  lands,  where  the  magnates 
held  to  the  old  faith,  Protestants  were  scarcely  to  be 
found  except  in  the  free  cities  and  a  few  remote  valleys 
among  the  mountains.  The  same  causes  which  injured 
the  Emperor's  position  in  Germany  swept  away  the  last 
semblance  of  his  authority  through  other  countries.  In 

2C 


386 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


Troubles  of 
Germany. 


CHAP.  xix.  the  religious  conflict  which  rent  the  Christian  world  for 
a  century  or  more  after  Charles  V,  the  Protestants  of 
England  and  France,  of  Holland  and  Sweden,  thought 
of  him  as  the  ally  of  Spain,  of  the  Vatican,  of  the  Jesuits ; 
and  he  of  whom  it  had  been  believed  a  century  before 
that  by  nothing  but  his  existence  was  the  coming  of 
Antichrist  on  earth  delayed,  was  in  the  eyes  of  the 
Northern  divines  either  Antichrist  himself  or  Antichrist's 
foremost  champion.  The  earthquake  that  opened  a 
chasm  in  Germany  was  felt  through  Europe;  its  states 
and  peoples  marshalled  themselves  under  two  hostile 
banners,  and  with  the  Empire's  expiring  power  vanished 
that  united  Christendom  it  had  been  created  to  lead. 

Some  of  the  effects  thus  sketched  began  to  shew 
themselves  soon  after  that  famous  Diet  of  Worms,  from 
Luther's  appearance  at  which,  in  A.D.  1521,  we  may 
date  the  beginning  of  the  Reformation.  But  just  as  the 
end  of  the  religious  conflict  in  England  can  hardly  be 
placed  earlier  than  the  Revolution  in  1688,  nor  in  France 
than  the  Revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes  in  1685, 
so  it  was  not  till  after  more  than  a  century  of  doubtful 
strife  that  the  new  order  of  things  was  fully  and  finally 
established  in  Germany.11  The  arrangements  made  at 
Augsburg  in  1530,  like  most  treaties  on  the  basis  of  uti 
fossidetis,  were  no  better  than  a  hollow  truce,  satisfying 
no  one,  and  consciously  made  to  be  broken.  The  church 
lands  which  Protestants  had  seized,  and  Jesuit  confessors 
urged  the  Catholic  princes  to  reclaim,  furnished  an  un- 
ceasing ground  of  quarrel.  Neither  party  yet  knew  the 
strength  of  its  antagonists  sufficiently  to  abstain  from  in- 

h  Each  German  prince  claimed,  and  usually  secured,  the  right  of  establish- 
ing within  his  territories  the  creed  he  adopted,  according  to  the  maxim :  '  Cuius 
regio  eius  religio.'  Lutherans  and  the  Calvinists  applied  this  principle  against 
each  other. 


Rudolf  II, 
1576-1612, 


Matthias, 
1612-1619 


THE   REFORMATION   AND   ITS   EFFECTS  387 

suiting  or  persecuting  their  modes  of  worship,  and  the  CHAP.  xix. 
smouldering  hate  of  half  a  century  was  kindled  by  the 
troubles  of  Bohemia  into  the  Thirty  Years'  War. 

The  imperial  sceptre  held  for  thirty-six  years  by  the  in-   Thirty 
dolent  and  vacillating  Rudolf  II  (1576-1612),  the  corrupt   Years'  War> 

r       i.  •     -\  u     j     j  1618-1648. 

and  reckless  policy  of  whose  ministers  had  done  much  to 
exasperate  the  already  suspicious  minds  of  the  Protestants, 
had    now   passed,   after   the   short   reign   of    his   brother 
Matthias,  into  the  firmer  grasp  of  Ferdinand  the  Second.1  Ferdinand 
Jealous,   bigoted,   implacable,  skilful  in  forming  and  con-  7/>  A<D- 

1610—1637. 

cealing  his  plans,  resolute  to  obstinacy  in  carrying  them 
out  in  action,  the  house  of  Hapsburg  could  have  had  no 
abler  and  no  more  unpopular  leader  in  their  second 
attempt  to  turn  the  Germanic  Empire  into  an  Austrian 
military  monarchy.  They  seemed  for  a  time  as  near  to 
the  accomplishment  of  the  project  as  Charles  the  Fifth 
had  been.  Leagued  with  Spain,  backed  by  the  Catholics  pians  of 
of  Germany,  served  by  the  genius  of  Wallen stein,  Fer-  Ferdinand 
dinand  proposed  nothing  less  than  the  extension  of 
the  Empire  to  its  old  limits,  and  the  recovery  of  his 
crown's  full  prerogative  over  all  its  vassals.  Denmark  and 
Holland  were  to  be  attacked  by  sea  and  land  :  Italy  to 
be  reconquered  with  the  help  of  Spain :  Maximilian  of 
Bavaria  and  Wallenstein  to  be  rewarded  with  principalities 
in  Pomerania  and  Mecklenburg.  The  latter  general  was 
all  but  master  of  Northern  Germany  when  the  successful 
resistance  of  Stralsund  turned  the  wavering  balance  of 
the  war.  Soon  after  (A.D.  1630),  Gustavus  Adolphus  Gustaws 
crossed  the  Baltic,  and  saved  Europe  from  an  impend-  AdolPhus- 
ing  reign  of  the  Jesuits.  Ferdinand's  high-handed  pro- 
ceedings had  already  alarmed  even  the  Catholic  princes. 
Of  his  own  authority  he  had  put  the  Elector  Palatine 
and  other  magnates  to  the  ban  of  the  Empire :  he  had 

1  Matthias,  brother  of  Rudolf  II,  reigned  from  1612  till  1619. 


388  THE  HOLY  ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP. xix.  transferred  an  electoral  vote  to  Bavaria;  had  treated 
the  districts  overrun  by  his  generals  as  spoil  of  war, 
to  be  portioned  out  at  his  pleasure;  had  unsettled  all 
possession  by  requiring  the  restitution  of  church  pro- 
perty occupied  since  A.D.  1555.  The  Protestants  were 
helpless ;  the  Catholics,  though  they  complained  of  the 
flagrant  illegality  of  such  conduct,  did  not  dare  to  oppose 
it ;  the  rescue  of  Germany  was  the  work  of  the  Swedish 
king.  In  four  campaigns  he  destroyed  the  armies  and 
the  prestige  of  the  Emperor ;  devastated  his  lands,  emptied 
his  treasury,  and  left  him  at  last  so  enfeebled  that  no 
subsequent  successes  could  make  him  again  formidable. 
Such,  nevertheless,  was  the  selfishness  and  apathy  of  the 
Protestant  princes,  divided  by  the  mutual  jealousy  of  the 
Lutheran  and  the  Calvinist  party  —  some,  like  the  Saxon 

Ferdinand      Elector,  inglorious   descendant   of   the   famous    Maurice, 

'  bribed  by  the  crafty  Austrian ;   others  afraid  to  stir  lest 

1637-1058.  J  J 

a  reverse   should   expose  them    unprotected   to   his   ven- 
geance —  that  but  for  the  interference  of  France  the  issue 
of   the  long-protracted  contest  would  have  gone  against 
A.D.  1634.       them,  although  Wallenstein  had  now  fallen  by  the  hand 
of   assassins    suborned    by    Ferdinand     II.      It   was   the 
leading   principle   of    Richelieu's   policy   to   depress   the 
house  of    Hapsburg  and  keep  Germany  disunited :  hence 
he  encouraged  Protestantism  abroad  while  trampling  it 
down  at  home.     Like  Cavour  two  centuries  later,  he  did 
The  Peace  of  not  live   to   see   the   triumph   his   skill   had   won.     That 
Westphalia,     triumph  was  sealed  in  A.D.  1648,  on  the  utter  exhaustion 
of   all  the  combatants,  and  the  treaties  of  Munster  and 
Osnabriick  were  thenceforward  the  basis  of  the  Germanic 
constitution. 


CHAPTER  XX 

THE   PEACE    OF  WESTPHALIA  :    LAST    STAGE    IN    THE  DECLINE 
OF    THE    EMPIRE 

THE  Peace  of  Westphalia  is  the  first,  and,  with  the  CHAP.  xx. 
possible  exception  of  the  Treaties  of  Vienna  in  1815, 
the  most  important  of  those  attempts  to  reconstruct  by 
diplomacy  the  European  states-system  which  have  played 
so  large  a  part  in  modern  history.  It  is  important,  how- 
ever, less  as  marking  the  introduction  of  new  principles, 
than  as  winding  up  the  struggle  which  had  convulsed 
Germany  since  the  revolt  of  Luther,  sealing  its  results, 
and  closing  definitely  the  period  of  the  Reformation.  Al- 
though the  causes  of  disunion  which  the  religious  move- 
ment called  into  being  had  now  been  at  work  for  more 
than  a  hundred  years,  their  effects  were  not  fully  seen 
till  it  became  necessary  to  establish  a  system  which  should 
represent  the  altered  relations  to  one  another  of  the  Ger- 
man states.  It  may  thus  be  said  of  this  famous  peace, 
as  of  the  other  so-called  'fundamental  law  of  the  Em- 
pire/ the  Golden  Bull,  that  it  did  no  more  than  legalize 
a  condition  of  things  already  in  existence,  but  which  by 
being  legalized  acquired  new  importance.  To  all  parties 
alike  the  result  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War  was  thoroughly 
unsatisfactory  —  to  the  Protestants,  who  had  lost  Bohemia, 
and  were  still  obliged  to  hold  an  inferior  place  in  the 
electoral  college  and  in  the  Diet :  to  the  Catholics,  who 
were  forced  to  permit  the  exercise  of  heretical  worship, 
and  leave  the  church  lands  in  the  grasp  of  sacrilegious 

389 


390  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xx.  spoilers :  to  the  princes,  who  could  not  throw  off  the 
burden  of  imperial  supremacy :  to  the  Emperor,  who 
could  turn  that  supremacy  to  no  practical  account.  No 
other  conclusion  was  possible  to  a  contest  in  which  every 
one  had  been  vanquished  and  no  one  victorious ;  which 
had  ceased  because  while  the  reasons  for  war  continued 
the  means  of  war  had  failed.  Nevertheless,  the  substan- 
tial advantage  remained  with  the  German  princes,  for  they 
gained  the  formal  recognition  of  that  territorial  independ- 
ence whose  origin  may  be  placed  as  far  back  as  the  days 
of  Frederick  the  Second,  and  the  maturity  of  which  had 
been  hastened  by  the  events  of  the  last  preceding  century. 
It  was,  indeed,  not  only  recognized  but  justified  as  rightful 
and  necessary.  For  while  the  political  situation,  to  use  a 
current  phrase,  had  changed  within  the  last  two  hundred 
years,  the  eyes  with  which  men  regarded  it  had  changed 
still  more.  Never  by  their  fiercest  enemies  in  earlier  times, 
not  once  by  Popes  or  Lombard  republics  in  the  heat  of 
their  strife  with  the  Franconian  and  Swabian  Caesars,  had 
the  Emperors  been  reproached  as  mere  German  kings, 
or  their  claim  to  be  the  lawful  heirs  of  Rome  denied. 
The  Protestant  jurists  of  the  seventeenth  century  were 
the  first  persons  who  ventured  to  scoff  at  the  pretended 
lordship  of  the  world,  and  declare  their  Empire  to  be  noth- 
ing more  than  a  German  monarchy,  in  dealing  with  which 
no  superstitious  reverence  need  prevent  its  subjects  from 
making  the  best  terms  they  could  for  themselves,  and  con- 
trolling a  sovereign  whose  religious  predilections  bound 
him  to  their  ecclesiastical  enemies. 

The  treatise         It  is  instructive  to  turn  suddenly  from  Dante  or  Peter 

of  mppoiytus  de  Andlau  to  a  book  published  shortly  before  A.D.   1648, 

under  the  name  of  Hippolytus  a  Lapide,a  and  notice  the 

matter-of-fact   way,   and   bitterly  contemptuous    spirit,  in 

*  De  Ratione  Status  in  Imperio  nostro  Romano- Germanico. 


LAST   STAGE   IN   THE   DECLINE   OF  THE   EMPIRE     391 

which,  disregarding  the  traditional  glories  of  the  Empire,  CHAP.  xx. 
he  comments  on  its  actual  condition  and  prospects.  Hip- 
polytus,  the  pseudonym  which  the  jurist  Chemnitz  assumed, 
urges  with  violence  almost  superfluous  that  the  Germanic 
constitution  must  be  treated  entirely  as  a  native  growth : 
that  the  so-called  '  lex  regia '  and  the  whole  system  of 
Justinianean  absolutism  which  the  Emperors  had  used  so 
dexterously,  were  in  their  applications  to  Germany  not 
merely  incongruous  but  positively  absurd.  With  eminent 
learning,  Chemnitz  examines  the  early  history  of  the  Em- 
pire, draws  from  the  unceasing  contests  of  the  monarch  with 
the  nobility  the  unexpected  moral  that  the  power  of  the 
former  has  been  always  dangerous,  and  is  now  more  dan- 
gerous than  ever,  and  then  launches  out  into  a  long  invec- 
tive against  the  policy  of  the  Hapsburgs,  an  invective 
which  the  ambition  and  harshness  of  the  late  Emperor 
(Ferdinand  II)  made  only  too  plausible.  The  one  real 
remedy  for  the  evils  that  menace  Germany  he  states  con- 
cisely—  'domus  Austriacae  extirpatio  ' :  but,  failing  this, 
he  would  have  the  Emperor's  prerogative  restricted  in 
every  way,  and  provide  means  for  resisting  or  dethroning 
him.  It  was  by  these  views,  which  seem  to  have  made  a 
profound  impression  in  Germany,  that  the  states,  or  rather 
France  and  Sweden  acting  on  their  behalf,  were  guided  in 
the  negotiations  of  Osnabriick  and  Miinster.  By  extorting 
a  full  recognition  of  the  sovereignty  of  all  the  princes, 
Catholics  and  Protestants  alike,  in  their  respective  ter- 
ritories, they  bound  the  Emperor  from  any  direct  in- 
terference with  the  administration,  either  in  particular 
districts  or  throughout  the  Empire.  All  affairs  of  public  Rights  of  the 
importance,  including  the  rights  of  making  war  or  peace,  E"lPe™rand 
of  levying  contributions,  raising  troops,  building  fortresses,  settied  in 
passing  or  interpreting  laws,  were  henceforth  to  be  left  A-D- 164«- 
entirely  in  the  hands  of  the  Diet.  The  Aulic  Council, 


392  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xx.  which  had  been  sometimes  the  engine  of  imperial  oppres- 
sion, and  always  of  imperial  intrigue,  was  so  restricted  as 
to  be  comparatively  harmless  for  the  future.  The  '  reser- 
vata  '  of  the  Emperor  were  confined  to  the  rights  of  grant- 
ing titles  and  confirming  tolls.  In  matters  of  religion,  an 
exact  though  not  perfectly  reciprocal  equality  was  estab- 
lished between  the  two  chief  ecclesiastical  bodies,  and 
the  right  of  '  Itio  in  partes,'  that  is  to  say,  of  deciding 
questions  in  which  religion  was  involved  by  amicable 
negotiations  between  the  Protestant  and  Catholic  states, 
instead  of  by  a  majority  of  votes  in  the  Diet,  was  defi- 
nitely conceded.  Both  Lutherans  and  Calvinists  were 
declared  free  from  all  jurisdiction  of  the  Pope  or  any 
Catholic  prelate.  Thus  the  last  link  which  bound  Ger- 
many as  a  whole  to  Rome  was  snapped,  the  last  of  the 
principles  by  virtue  of  which  the  Empire  had  existed  was 
abandoned.  For  the  Empire  now  contained  and  recog- 
nized as  its  members  persons  who  formed  a  visible  body 
at  open  war  with  the  Holy  Roman  Church ;  and  its  con- 
stitution admitted  schismatics  to  a  full  share  in  all  those 
civil  rights  which,  according  to  the  doctrines  of  the  early 
Middle  Age,  could  be  enjoyed  by  no  one  who  was  out  of 
the  communion  of  the  Catholic  Church.  The  Peace  of 
Westphalia  was  therefore  an  abrogation  of  the  sovereignty 
of  Rome,  and  of  the  theory  of  Church  and  State  with 
which  the  name  of  Rome  was  associated.  And  in  this 
light  was  it  regarded  by  Pope  Innocent  the  Tenth,  who 
commanded  his  legate  to  protest  against  it,  and  subse- 
quently declared  it  void  by  the  bull  ' Zelo  domits  Dei' b 

6  Even  then  the  Roman  pontiffs  had  lapsed  into  that  scolding,  anile  tone 
(so  unlike  the  fiery  brevity  of  Hildebrand,  or  the  stern  precision  of  Innocent 
III)  which  for  a  long  time  thereafter  characterized  their  public  utterances. 
Pope  Innocent  the  Tenth  pronounces  the  provisions  of  the  treaty,  '  ipso  iure 
nulla,  irrita,  invalida,  iniqua,  iniusta,  damnata,  reprobata,  inania,  viribusque 


LAST   STAGE   IN   THE   DECLINE   OF   THE   EMPIRE     393 

The  transference  of  power  within  the  Empire  from  its  CHAP,  xx 
head  to  its  members,  was  a  small  matter  compared  with 
the  losses  which  the  Empire  suffered  as  a  whole.  The 
real  gainers  by  the  treaties  of  Westphalia  were  those  who 
had  borne  the  brunt  of  the  battle  against  Ferdinand  the 
Second  and  his  son.  To  France  were  ceded  Brisac,  the  i^ssof 
Austrian  part  of  Alsace,  and  the  lands  of  the  three  bishop-  imPerial 
rics  in  Lorraine  —  Metz,  Toul,  and  Verdun,  which  her 
armies  had  seized  in  A.D.  1552;  to  Sweden,  Northern 
Pomerania,  Bremen,  and  Verden.  There  was,  however,  this 
difference  between  the  position  of  the  two,  that  whereas 
Sweden  became  a  member  of  the  German  Diet  for  what 
she  received  (as  the  king  of  Holland  was,  until  1866,  a 
member  for  Dutch  Luxemburg,  and  as  the  king  of  Den- 
mark, up  till  the  accession  of  Christian  IX  in  1863,  was 
for  Holstein),  the  acquisitions  of  France  were  delivered  over 
to  her  in  full  sovereignty,  and  for  ever  (as  it  then  seemed) 
severed  from  the  Germanic  body.  And  as  it  was  by  their 
aid  that  the  liberties  of  the  Protestants  had  been  won, 
these  two  states  obtained  at  the  same  time  what  was  more 
valuable  than  territorial  accessions  —  the  right  of  interfer- 
ing at  imperial  elections,  and  generally  whenever  the  pro- 
visions of  the  treaties  of  Osnabruck  and  Miinster,  which 
they  had  guaranteed,  might  be  supposed  to  be  endangered. 
The  bounds  of  the  Empire  were  further  narrowed  by  the 
final  separation  of  two  countries,  once  integral  parts  of 
Germany,  and  up  to  this  time  legally  members  of  her 
body.  The  United  Provinces  of  Holland  and  the  Swiss 
Confederation  were,  in  A.D.  1648,  declared  independent. 

The  Peace  of  Westphalia  is  an  era  in  the  history  of  the 

et  effectu  vacua,  omnino  fuisse,  esse,  et  perpetuo  fore.'     In  spite  of  which  they 
took  effect. 

This  bull  may  be  found  in  vol.  xvii  of  the  Bullarium  Romanum.     It  bears 
date  Nov.  2Oth,  A.D.  1648. 


394 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  XX. 
Constitution 
of  Germany 
after  the 
Peace. 


Number  of 
petty  inde- 
pendent 
states  :  effects 
of  such  a 
system  on 
Germany. 


Holy  Empire  not  less  clearly  marked  than  the  coronation 
of  Otto  the  Great,  or  the  death  of  Frederick  the  Second. 
As  from  the  days  of  Maximilian  I  it  had  borne  a  mixed  or 
transitional  character,  well  expressed  by  the  name  Romano- 
Germanic,  so  henceforth  it  is  in  everything  but  title 
purely  and  solely  a  German  Empire.  Properly,  indeed, 
it  was  no  longer  an  Empire  at  all,  but  a  Federation, 
and  that  of  the  loosest  sort.  For  it  had  no  common  treas- 
ury, no  efficient  common  tribunals,0  no  means-  of  coercing 
a  refractory  member  ; d  its  states  were  of  different  religions, 
were  governed  according  to  different  forms,  were  adminis- 
tered judicially  and  financially  without  any  regard  to  each 
other.  The  traveller  by  rail  in  Central  Germany  used,  up 
till  1866,  to  be  amused  to  find,  every  hour  or  two,  by  the 
change  in  the  soldiers'  uniforms,  and  in  the  colour  of  the 
stripes  on  the  railway  fences,  that  he  had  passed  out  of 
one  and  into  another  of  its  miniature  kingdoms.  Much 
more  surprised  and  embarrassed  would  he  have  been  a 
century  earlier,  when,  instead  of  the  present  twenty-two, 
there  were  three  hundred  petty  principalities  between  the 
Alps  and  the  Baltic,  each  with  its  own  laws,  its  own  court 
(in  which  the  ceremonious  pomp  of  Versailles  was  faintly 
reproduced),  its  little  army,  its  separate  coinage,  its  tolls 
and  custom-houses  on  the  frontier,  its  crowd  of  meddlesome 


c  The  Imperial  Chamber  (Kammergericht),  instituted  in  A.D.  1495,  con- 
tinued, with  frequent  and  long  interruptions,  to  sit  while  the  Empire  lasted. 
But  its  slowness  and  formality  passed  that  of  any  other  legal  body  the  world 
has  yet  seen,  and  it  had  no  power  to  enforce  its  sentences.  Till  1689  it  sat  at 
Speyer,  whence  the  saying  '  Spirae  lites  spirant  et  non  exspirant ' ;  in  that 
year  the  French  laid  Speyer  in  ashes,  and  the  Chamber  was  in  1693  estab- 
lished at  Wetzlar,  where  Goethe  (who  had  gone  thither  as  a  law  student)  saw 
it  dawdling  over  its  work  in  1772.  The  house  of  Charlotte  the  heroine  of  the 
Sorrows  of  Werther  is  still  shewn  in  this  sleepy  little  city. 

d  The  '  matricula '  specifying  the  quota  of  each  state  to  the  imperial  army 
could  not  be  any  longer  employed. 


LAST   STAGE   IN   THE   DECLINE   OF   THE   EMPIRE     395 

and  pedantic  officials,  presided  over  by  a  prime  minister  CHAP.  xx. 
who  was  often  the  unworthy  favourite  of  his  prince  and 
sometimes  the  pensioner  of  a  foreign  court.  This  vicious 
system,  which  paralyzed  the  trade,  the  literature,  and  the 
political  thought  of  Germany,  had  been  forming  itself  for 
some  time,  but  did  not  become  fully  established  until  the 
Peace  of  Westphalia,  by  finally  emancipating  the  princes 
from  imperial  control,  had  left  them  masters  in  their  own 
territories.  The  impoverishment  of  the  inferior  nobility  and 
the  decline  of  the  commercial  cities  caused  by  a  war  that 
had  lasted  a  whole  generation,  removed  every  counterpoise 
to  the  power  of  the  electors  and  princes,  and  made  absolu- 
tism supreme  just  where  absolutism  is  least  defensible,  its 
states  too  small  to  have  any  public  opinion,  states  in 
which  everything  depends  on  the  monarch,  and  the 
monarch  depends  on  his  favourites.  After  A.D.  1648 
the  provincial  estates  or  parliaments  became  obsolete 
in  most  of  these  principalities,  and  powerless  in  the  rest. 
Germany  was  forced  to  drink  to  its  very  dregs  the  cup  of 
feudalism,  feudalism  from  which  all  the  sentiment  that 
once  ennobled  it  had  departed. 

It  is  instructive  to  compare  the  results  of  the  system  of  Feudalism 
feudality  in  the  three  chief  countries  of  modern  Europe.  in  France> 
In  France,  the  feudal  head    absorbed   all   the  powers  of   Germany. 
the  state,  and  left  to  the  aristocracy  only  a  few  privileges, 
odious   indeed,    but   politically   worthless.       In    England, 
the   mediaeval   system    expanded    into    a    constitutional 
monarchy,    where    the   landholding    oligarchy    was    still 
strong,  but  the  commons  had  won  the  full  recognition  of 
equal  civil  rights.     In   Germany,    everything   was   taken 
from  the  sovereign,  and  nothing  given  to  the  people ;  the 
representatives    of   those   who    had    been   fief-holders   of 
the  first  and  second  rank  before  the    Great    Interregnum 
were   now   independent  potentates;  and   what  had   been 


396  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xx.  once  a  monarchy  was  now  an  aristocratic  federation. 
The  Diet,  originally  an  assembly  of  the  whole  people, 
and  thereafter  of  the  feudal  tenants-in-chief,  meeting  from 
time  to  time  like  our  early  English  Parliaments,  became  in 
A.D.  1654  a  permanent  body,  at  which  the  electors,  princes, 
and  cities  were  represented  by  their  envoys.  In  other 
words,  it  was  not  so  much  a  national  Parliament  as  an 
international  congress  of  diplomatists. 

Causes  of  Where  the  sacrifice  of  imperial,  or  rather  federal,  rights 

the  continued  ^      ^  ^    rights  was  so  complete,  we  may  wonder  that  the 

maintenance  J 

of  the  Em-     farce   of   an    Empire   should   have   been  retained  at  all. 

&*"*•  A  mere  German  Empire  would  probably  have  perished; 

but  the  Teutonic  people  could  not  bring  itself  to  abandon 
the  venerable  heritage  of  Rome.  Moreover,  the  Germans 
were  of  all  European  peoples  the  most  slow-moving  and 
long-suffering ;  and  as,  if  the  Empire  had  fallen,  some- 
thing must  have  been  erected  in  its  place,  they  preferred 
to  work  on  with  the  clumsy  machine  so  long  as  it  would 
work  at  all.  Properly  speaking,  it  has  no  history  after 
this  ;  and  the  history  of  the  particular  states  of  Germany 
which  takes  its  place  is  one  of  the  dreariest  chapters  in 
the  annals  of  mankind.  It  would  be  hard  to  find,  from 
the  Peace  of  Westphalia  to  the  French  Revolution,  a  single 
grand  character  or  a  single  noble  enterprise ;  a  single 
sacrifice  made  to  great  public  interests,  a  single  instance 
in  which  the  welfare  of  the  people  was  preferred  to  the 
selfish  passions  of  their  princes.  One  ruler  there  was 
indeed  of  consummate  powers,  the  ruler  who  by  building 
up  a  strong  and  well-administered  state  became  the  true 
founder  of  that  greatness  which  has  enabled  the  Prussian 
kingdom  to  revive  the  Germanic  Empire  and  to  bear  its 
weight.  But  the  policy  of  Frederick  II  was  throughout 
a  purely  Prussian,  rather  than  a  German  policy,  and 
though  he  did  much  for  his  subjects,  he  did  nothing 


LAST   STAGE   IN   THE   DECLINE   OF   THE   EMPIRE     397 

through  or   by   them,  and   gave   no   opportunity  for  the  CHAP.  xx. 

developement  among  them  of   self-government  or  of  the 

spirit   of   Germanic  nationality.     The  military  history  of 

the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  will  always  be 

read   with   interest;   but   free   and   progressive   countries 

have  a  history  of   peace   not  less   rich   and  varied   than 

that  of  war;  and  when   we   ask   for   an  account  of  the 

political  life  of  Germany  in  the  eighteenth  century,  we 

hear  nothing  but  the  scandals  of  buzzing  courts,  and  the 

wrangling  of  diplomatists  at  never-ending  congresses. 

Useless  and  helpless  as  the  Empire  had  become,  it  was 
not  without  its  importance  to  the  neighbouring  countries, 
with  whose  fortunes  it  had  been  linked  by  the  Peace  of 
Westphalia.     It  was  the  pivot  on  which  the  political  sys-   The  Empire 
tern  of   Europe  was  to  revolve:   the  scales,  so  to  speak,  Mtdthe 

balance 

which  marked  the  equipoise  of  power  that  had  become  the  Of  power. 
grand  object  of  the  policy  of  all  states.  This  modern  tra- 
vesty of  the  plan  by  which  the  theorists  of  the  fourteenth 
century  had  proposed  to  keep  the  world  at  peace,  used 
means  less  noble  and  attained  its  end  no  better  than  theirs 
had  done.  No  one  will  deny  that  it  was  and  is  desirable 
to  prevent  a  universal  monarchy  in  Europe.  But  it  may 
be  asked  whether  a  system  can  be  considered  successful 
which  allowed  Frederick  of  Prussia  to  seize  Silesia,  which 
did  not  check  the  aggressions  of  Russia  and  France  upon 
their  neighbours,  which  was  for  ever  bartering  and  ex- 
changing lands  in  every  part  of  Europe  without  thought 
of  the  inhabitants,  which  permitted  and  was  never  able  to 
redress  such  a  calamity  as  the  partitionment  of  Poland. 
And  if  it  be  said  that  bad  as  things  have  been  under  this 
system,  they  would  have  been  worse  without  it,  it  is  hard 
to  refrain  from  asking  whether  any  evils  could  have  been 
greater  than  those  which  the  people  of  Europe  have  suf- 
fered through  constant  wars  with  each  other,  and  through 


398 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  XX. 


Position  of 
the  Empire 
in  Europe. 


the  withdrawal,  even  in  time  of  peace,  of  so  large  a  part  of 
their  population  from  useful  labour  to  be  wasted  in  main- 
taining gigantic  standing  armies. 

The  result  of  the  extended  relations  in  which  Germany 
now  found  herself  to  Europe,  with  two  foreign  kings  never 
wanting  an  occasion,  one  of  them  never  the  wish,  to  inter- 
fere, was  that  a  spark  from  her  set  the  Continent  ablaze, 
while  flames  kindled  elsewhere  were  sure  to  spread  hither. 
Matters  grew  worse  as  her  princes  inherited  or  created  so 
many  thrones  abroad.  The  Duke  of  Holstein  acquired 
Denmark,  the  Elector  of  Saxony  Poland,  the  Elector  of 
Hanover  England,  the  Archduke  of  Austria  Hungary  and 
Bohemia,  while  the  Elector  (originally  Margrave)  of  Bran- 
denburg assumed,  on  the  strength  of  non-imperial  terri- 
tories to  the  north-eastward  which  had  come  into  his  hands, 
the  style  and  title  of  King  of  Prussia.6  Thus  the  Empire 
seemed  again  about  to  embrace  Europe;  but  in  a  sense 
far  different  from  that  which  those  words  would  have 
expressed  under  Charles  and  Otto.  Its  history  for  a  cen- 
tury and  a  half  is  a  dismal  list  of  losses  and  disgraces. 
The  chief  external  danger  was  from  French  influence,  for 
a  time  supreme,  always  menacing.  For  though  Lewis 
XIV,  on  whom,  in  A.D.  1658,  half  the  electoral  college 
wished  to  confer  the  imperial  crown,  was  before  the  end  of 
his  life  an  object  of  intense  hatred,  officially  entitled  '  He- 
reditary enemy  of  the  Holy  Empire,' f  France  had  never- 
theless a  strong  party  among  the  princes  at  her  beck. 
The  Rhenish  and  Bavarian  electors  were  her  favourite 
tools.  The  'reunions'  begun  in  A.D.  1680,  a  pleasant 
euphemism  for  robbery  in  time  of  peace,  added  Strasburg 
and  other  places  in  Alsace,  Lorraine,  and  Franche  Comte 

e  A  member  of  the  Palatinate  family  succeeded  to  the  crown  of  Sweden  in 
1654. 

f  Erbfeind  des  heiligtn  Reiehs. 


LAST   STAGE   IN   THE   DECLINE   OF  THE   EMPIRE     399 

to  the  monarchy  of  Lewis,  and  brought  him  nearer  the  heart  CHAP.  xx. 
of  the  Empire ;  his  ambition  and  cruelty  were  witnessed  to 
by  repeated  wars,  and  by  the  devastation  of  the  Rhine  coun- 
tries ;  the  ultimate  though  short-lived  triumph  of  his  policy 
was  attained  when  Marshal  Belleisle  dictated  the  election 
of  Charles  VII  in  A.D.  1742.  In  the  Turkish  wars,  when 
the  princes  left  Vienna  to  be  saved  by  the  Polish  king  So- 
bieski,  the  Empire's  weakness  appeared  in  pitiable  light. 
There  was,  indeed,  a  complete  loss  of  hope  and  interest  in 
the  old  system.  The  princes  had  been  so  long  accustomed  Weakness 
to  consider  themselves  the  natural  foes  of  a  central  govern-  and3tas- 

nation  of 

ment,  that  a  request  made  by  it  was  sure  to  be  disregarded ;  Germany. 
they  aped  in  their  petty  courts  the  pomp  and  etiquette  of 
Vienna  or  Paris,  grumbling  that  they  should  be  required  to 
garrison  the  great  frontier  fortresses  which  alone  protected 
them  from  an  encroaching  neighbour.  The  Free  Cities 
had  never  recovered  from  the  famines  and  sieges  of  the 
Thirty  Years'  War :  Hanseatic  greatness  had  waned,  and 
the  southern  towns  had  sunk  into  languid  oligarchies.  All 
the  vigour  of  the  people  in  a  somewhat  stagnant  age  either 
found  its  sphere  in  rising  states  like  the  Prussia  of  Fred- 
erick the  Great,  or  turned  away  from  politics  altogether 
into  other  channels.  The  Diet  had  become  contemptible 
from  the  slowness  with  which  it  moved,  and  its  tedious 
squabbles  on  matters  the  most  frivolous.  Many  sittings 
were  consumed  in  the  discussion  of  a  question  regarding 
the  time  of  keeping  Easter,  more  ridiculous  than  that 
which  had  distracted  the  Western  churches  in  the  seventh 
century,  the  Protestants  refusing  to  reckon  by  the  reformed 
calendar  because  it  was  the  work  of  a  Pope.  Collective 
action  through  the  old  organs  was  confessed  impossible, 
when  the  common  object  of  defence  against  France  was 
sought  by  forming  a  league  under  the  Emperor's  presi- 
dency, and  when  at  European  congresses  the  Empire  was 


4OO 


THE    HOLY   ROMAN    EMPIRE 


CHAP.  XX. 


Leopold  I, 
1658-1705. 
Joseph  /, 
1705-1711. 
Charles  VI, 
1711-1740. 


The  Haps- 
burg  Em- 
perors and 
their  policy. 


not  represented  at  all.g  No  change  could  come  from 
the  Emperor,  whom  the  capitulation  of  A.D.  1658  deposed 
ipso  facto  if  he  violated  its  provisions.  As  Dohm  said, 
to  keep  him  from  doing  harm,  he  was  kept  from  doing 
anything. 

Yet  little  was  lost  by  his  inactivity,  for  what  could  have 
been  hoped  from  his  action  ?  From  the  election  of  Albert 
the  Second,  A.D.  1437,  to  the  death  of  Charles  the  Sixth, 
A.D.  1740,  the  sceptre  had  remained  in  the  hands  of  one 
family.  So  far  from  being  fit  subjects  for  undistinguishing 
invective,  the  Hapsburg  Emperors  may  be  contrasted 
favourably  with  the  contemporary  dynasties  of  France, 
Spain,  or  England.  Their  policy,  viewed  as  a  whole  from 
the  days  of  Rudolf  I  downwards,  had  been  neither  con- 
spicuously tyrannical,  nor  faltering,  nor  dishonest.  But 
it  had  been  almost  always  a  selfish  family  policy.  En- 
trusted with  an  office  which  might,  if  there  be  any  power 
in  those  memories  of  the  past  to  which  the  champions  of 
hereditary  monarchy  were  wont  to  appeal,  have  stirred 
their  sluggish  souls  with  some  enthusiasm  for  the  heroes 
on  whose  throne  they  sat,  some  wish  to  advance  the  glory 
and  the  happiness  of  Germany,  they  had  cared  for  nothing, 
sought  nothing,  used  the  Empire  as  an  instrument  for 
nothing  but  the  attainment  of  their  own  personal  or  dynas- 
tic ends.  Placed  on  the  eastern  verge  of  Germany,  the 
Hapsburgs  had  added  to  their  ancient  lands  in  Austria 
proper,  Styria  and  Tyrol,  non-German  territories  far  more 
extensive,  and  had  thus  become  the  chiefs  of  a  separate 
and  independent  state.  They  endeavoured  to  reconcile  its 
interests  with  the  interests  of  the  Empire,  so  long  as  it 
seemed  possible  to  recover  part  of  the  old  imperial  pre- 
rogative. But  when  such  hopes  were  dashed  by  the 


Only  the  envoys  of  the  several  states  were  present  at  Utrecht  in  1713. 


LAST   STAGE   IN   THE   DECLINE   OF   THE   EMPIRE    401 

defeats  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  they  hesitated  no  longer  CHAP.  xx. 
between  an  elective  crown  and  the  rule  of  their  hereditary 
dominions,  and  comported  themselves  thenceforth  in  Euro- 
pean politics  not  as  the  representatives  of  Germany,  but  as 
heads  of  the  great  Austrian  monarchy.  There  would  have 
been  nothing  culpable  in  this  had  they  not  at  the  same 
time  continued  to  entangle  Germany  in  wars  with  which 
she  had  no  concern :  to  waste  her  strength  in  tedious  com- 
bats with  the  Turks,  or  plunge  her  into  a  new  struggle 
with  France,  not  to  defend  her  frontiers  or  recover  the 
lands  she  had  lost,  but  that  some  scion  of  the  house  of 
Hapsburg  might  reign  in  Spain  or  Italy.  Watching  the 
whole  course  of  their  foreign  policy,  marking  how  in  A.D. 
1736  they  had  bartered  away  Lorraine  for  Tuscany,  a 
German  for  a  non-German  territory,  and  seeing  how  at 
home  they  opposed  every  scheme  of  reform  which  could 
in  the  least  degree  trench  upon  their  own  prerogative,  how 
they  strove  to  obstruct  the  imperial  chamber  lest  it  should 
interfere  with  their  own  Aulic  council,  men  were  driven  to 
separate  the  body  of  the  Empire  from  the  imperial  office 
and  its  possessors,11  and  when  plans  for  reinvigorating  the 
one  failed,  to  leave  the  others  to  their  fate.  Still  the  old 
line  clung  to  the  crown  with  that  Hapsburg  gripe  which 
has  almost  passed  into  a  proverb.  Odious  as  Austria  was,  Causes  of 
no  one  could  despise  her,  or  fancy  it  easy  to  shake  her  tkt ' lang 

J  J  retention  of 

commanding    position    in    Europe.     Her    alliances    were  the  throne 
fortunate  :    her  designs  were  steadily  pursued :    her  dis-  &  Austria. 
membered   territories   always   returned   to   her.     Though 
the  imperial  throne  continued  strictly  elective,  it  was  im- 
possible not  to  be  influenced  by  long  prescription.     Pro- 
jects were  repeatedly  formed  to  set  the  Hapsburgs  aside 

h  We  have  unfortunately  no  terms  to  correspond  to  the  distinction  ex- 
pressed by  the  German  '  Reich  '  and  '  Kaiserthum.' 

2D 


402  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xx.  by  electing  a  prince  of  some  other  line1,  or  by  passing 
a  law  that  there  should  never  be  more  than  two,  or  four, 
successive  Emperors  of  the  same  house.  France  ever 
and  anon  renewed  her  warnings  to  the  electors,  that  their 
freedom  was  passing  from  them,  and  the  sceptre  becoming 
hereditary  in  one  haughty  family.3  But  it  was  felt  that 
a  change  would  be  difficult  and  disagreeable,  and  that  the 
heavy  expense  and  scanty  revenues  of  the  Empire  required 
to  be  supported  by  larger  patrimonial  domains  than  most 
German  princes  possessed.  The  heads  of  states  like 
Prussia  and  Hanover,  states  whose  size  and  wealth  would 
have  made  them  suitable  candidates,  were  Protestants, 
and  thus  practically  excluded  both  by  the  connection  of 
the  imperial  office  with  the  Church,  and  by  the  majority 
of  Roman  Catholics  in  the  electoral  college, k  who,  how- 
ever jealous  they  might  be  of  Austria,  were  led  by  habit 
and  by  sympathy  to  rally  round  her  in  moments  of  peril. 
The  one  occasion  on  which  these  considerations  were 

1  So  the  elector  of  Saxony  proposed  in  1532  that,  Albert  II,  Frederick  III, 
and  Maximilian  having  been  all  of  one  house,  Charles  V's  successor  should 
be  chosen  from  some  other.  Moser,  Romische  Kayser.  See  the  various  at- 
tempts of  France  in  Moser.  The  coronation  engagements  (Wahlcapitulation) 
of  every  Emperor  bound  him  not  to  attempt  to  make  the  throne  hereditary 
in  his  family. 

J  In  1658  France  offered  to  subsidize  the  Elector  of  Bavaria  if  he  would 
become  Emperor. 

k  Whether  an  Evangelical  was  eligible  for  the  office  of  Emperor  was  a 
question  often  debated,  but  never  actually  raised  by  the  candidature  of  any 
but  a  Roman  Catholic  prince.  The  '  exacta  aequalitas '  conceded  by  the 
Peace  of  Westphalia  might  appear  to  include  so  important  a  privilege.  But 
it  must  be  remembered  that  the  peculiar  relation  in  which  the  Emperor  stood 
to  the  Holy  Roman  Church  was  one  which  no  one  out  of  the  communion  of 
that  Church  could  hold,  and  that  the  coronation  oaths  could  not  have  been 
taken  by,  nor  the  coronation  ceremonies  (among  which  was  a  sort  of  ordi- 
nation) performed  upon  a  Protestant. 

The  Emperor  Sigismund  is  said  to  have  officiated  as  a  deacon  at  a  solemn 
mass  at  the  opening  of  the  Council  of  Constance,  and  chanted  the  Gospel. 


LAST   STAGE   IN  THE   DECLINE  OF   THE   EMPIRE     403 

disregarded   shewed   their  force.     On   the   extinction    of  CHAP.XX. 
the  male  line  of  Hapsburg  in  the  person  of  Charles  the 
Sixth,  the  intrigues  of  the  French  envoy,  Marshal  Belle- 
isle,  procured  the  election  of  the  Elector  Charles  Albert  Charles  vn, 
of  Bavaria,  who  stood  first  among  the  Catholic  princes.   I742-I745- 
His  reign  was  a  succession  of  misfortunes  and  ignominies. 
Driven  cut   of    Munich   by   the  Austrians,  the   head    of  Francis  i, 
the   Holy  Empire  lived  in  Frankfort  on  the  bounty  of 
France,  cursed  by  the  country  on  which  his  ambition  had 
brought  the  miseries  of  a  protracted  war.1     The  choice 
in   1745   of   Duke  Francis  of    Lorraine,  husband  of   the 
archduchess   of   Austria   and   queen  of   Hungary,  Maria 
Theresa,  was  meant  to  restore  the  crown  to  the  only  power 
capable  of  wearing  it  with  dignity  :  in  Joseph  the  Second, 
her  son,  it  again  rested  on  the  brow  of   a  scion  of   the 
ancient  line.™      In  the  war  of   the   Austrian  succession, 

1 '  The  bold  Bavarian,  in  a  luckless  hour, 

Tries  the  dread  summits  of  Caesarean  power  ; 

With  unexpected  legions  bursts  away, 

And  sees  defenceless  realms  receive  his  sway.  ... 

The  baffled  prince  in  honour's  flattering  bloom 

Of  hasty  greatness  finds  the  fatal  doom  ; 

His  foes'  derision  and  his  subjects'  blame, 

And  steals  to  death  from  anguish  and  from  shame.' 

—  JOHNSON,  Vanity  of  Human  Wishes. 

m  The  following  nine  reasons  for  the  long  continuance  of  the  Empire  in  the 
House  of  Hapsburg  are  given  by  Pfemnger  (  Vitriarius  Illustratw},  writing 
early  in  the  eighteenth  century  :  — 

1.  The  great  power  of  Austria. 

2.  Her  wealth,  now  that  the  Empire  was  so  poor. 

3.  The  majority  of  Catholics  among  the  electors. 

4.  Her  fortunate  matrimonial  alliances. 

5.  Her  moderation. 

6.  The  memory  of  benefits  conferred  by  her. 

7.  The  example  of  evils  that  had  followed  a  departure  from  the  blood  of 

former  Caesars. 

8.  The  fear  of  the  confusion  that  would  ensue  if  she  were  deprived  of 

the  crown. 

9.  Her  own  eagerness  to  have  it. 


404 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  XX. 


Seven  Years' 

War, 

1756-1763. 


Joseph  II, 
1765-1790. 


Leopold  II, 
1790-1792. 
Last  phase 
of  the  Em- 
fire. 


which  followed  the  death  of  Charles  the  Sixth,  the  Empire 
as  a  body  took  no  part ;  in  the  Seven  Years'  War  its  whole 
might  broke  in  vain  against  one  resolute  member.  Under 
Frederick  the  Great  Prussia  approved  herself  at  least  a 
match  for  France  and  Austria  leagued  against  her,  and  the 
semblance  of  unity  which  the  predominance  of  a  single 
power  had  hitherto  given  to  the  Empire  was  replaced  by 
the  avowed  rivalry  of  two  military  monarchies.  The 
Emperor  Joseph  the  Second,  a  sort  of  philosopher-king, 
than  whom  few  have  more  narrowly  missed  greatness, 
made  a  desperate  effort  to  set  things  right,  striving  to 
restore  the  disordered  finances,  to  purge  and  vivify  the 
Imperial  Chamber.  Nay,  he  renounced  the  intolerant 
policy  of  his  ancestors,  quarrelled  with  the  Pope,n  and 
presumed  to  visit  Rome,  whose  streets  heard  once  more 
the  shout  that  had  been  silent  for  three  centuries,  '  Long 
live  our  Emperor !  You  are  in  your  own  house  !  You  are 
the  master!'0  But  his  indiscreet  haste  was  met  by  a 
sullen  resistance,  and  he  died  disappointed  in  plans  for 
which  the  time  was  not  yet  ripe,  leaving  no  result  save  the 
league  of  princes  which  Frederick  the  Great  had  formed 
to  oppose  his  designs  on  Bavaria.  His  successor,  Leopold 
the  Second,  abandoned  the  projected  reforms,  and  a  calm, 
the  calm  before  the  hurricane,  settled  down  again  upon 
Germany.  The  existence  of  the  Empire  was  almost  for- 
gotten by  its  subjects :  there  was  nothing  to  remind  them 
of  it  but  a  feudal  investiture  now  and  then  at  Vienna  (real 
feudal  rights  were  obsolete,  as  Joseph  II  found  when  he 
tried  to  enforce  them) ;  a  concourse  of  solemn  old  lawyers 

n  The  Pope  undertook  a  journey  to  Vienna  to  mollify  Joseph,  and  met 
with  a  sufficiently  cold  reception.  When  he  saw  the  famous  minister  Kaunitz 
and  gave  him  his  hand  to  kiss,  Kaunitz  took  it  and  shook  it. 

0  Joseph  was  the  first  Emperor  since  Charles  the  Bald  who  had  kept  his 
Christmas  at  Rome. 


LAST   STAGE   IN   THE   DECLINE  OF   THE   EMPIRE     405 

at  Wetzlar  puzzling  over  interminable  suits,p  and  some  CHAP.  xx. 
thirty  diplomatists  at  Regensburg,  the  relics  of  that  Im- 
perial Diet  where  once  a  hero-king,  a  Frederick  or  a  The  Diet. 
Henry,  enthroned  amid  mitred  prelates  and  steel-clad 
barons,  had  issued  laws  for  every  tribe  from  the  Mediter- 
ranean to  the  Baltic.q  The  solemn  triflings  of  this  so- 
called  '  Diet  of  Deputation  '  —  which  Frederick  the  Great 
compared  to  dogs  in  a  yard  baying  the  moon  —  have 
probably  never  been  equalled  elsewhere/  Questions  of 
precedence  and  title,  questions  whether  the  envoys  of 
princes  should  have  chairs  of  red  cloth  like  those  of  the 
electors,  or  only  of  the  less  honourable  green,  whether 
they  should  be  served  on  gold  or  on  silver,  how  many 
hawthorn  boughs  should  be  hung  up  before  the  door  of 
each  on  May-day ;  these,  and  such  as  these,  it  was  their 
chief  employment  not  to  settle  but  to  discuss.  The 
pedantic  formalism  of  old  Germany  passed  that  of  Span- 
iards or  Turks ;  it  had  now  crushed  under  a  mountain 
of  rubbish  whatever  meaning  or  force  its  old  institutions 
had  contained.  It  is  the  penalty  of  greatness  that  its  form 
should  outlive  its  substance :  that  gilding  and  trappings 
should  remain  when  that  which  they  were  meant  to  deck 
and  clothe  has  departed.  So  our  sloth  or  our  timidity,  not 
seeing  the  mischief  which  a  soulless  sham  can  do,  main- 

P  Shortly  before  the  Empire  ended,  there  were  more  than  sixty  thousand 
lawsuits  waiting  to  be  heard. 

i  In  1764  the  revenue  of  the  Emperor  (from  the  Empire)  was  estimated 
at  13,884  florins  and  32  kreutzers.  Some  one  remarks  that  one  day's  journey, 
in  Germany,  might  take  a  traveller  through  the  territories  of  a  free  city,  a 
sovereign  abbot,  a  village  belonging  to  an  imperial  knight,  and  the  dominions 
of  a  landgrave,  a  duke,  a  prince,  and  a  king,  so  small,  so  numerous,  and  so 
diverse  were  the  principalities. 

r  He  said  of  the  Diet,  'Es  ist  ein  Schattenbild,  eine  Versammlung  aus 
Publizisten  die  mehr  mit  Formalien  als  mit  Sachen  sich  beschaftigen,  und, 
wie  Hofhunde,  den  Mond  anbellen.' 


406 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  XX. 


Feelings  of 
the  German 
people. 


tains  in  being  what  once  was  good  long  after  it  has  become 
helpless  and  hopeless:  so  now  at  the  close  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  strings  of  sounding  titles  were  all  that  was  left  of 
the  Empire  which  Charles  had  founded,  and  Frederick  had 
adorned,  and  Dante  had  sung. 

The  German  mind,  just  beginning  to  put  forth  the 
first  blossoms  of  its  noblest  literary  epoch,  turned  away 
in  disgust  from  the  spectacle  of  ceremonious  imbecility 
more  than  Byzantine.  National  feeling  seemed  gone 
from  princes  and  people  alike.  Not  to  speak  of  cynical 
monarchs  like  Frederick  the  Great  and  Joseph  II,  even 
Lessing,  who  did  more  than  any  one  else  to  create  the 
German  literary  spirit,  says,  '  Of  the  love  of  country 
I  have  no  conception :  it  appears  to  me  at  best  a  heroic 
weakness  which  I  am  right  glad  to  be  without.'  There 
were  nevertheless  persons  who  saw  how  fatal  such  a 
system  was,  lying  like  a  nightmare  on  the  people's  soul. 
Speaking  of  the  Union  of  Princes  (Fiirstenbund)  formed 
by  Frederick  of  Prussia  to  preserve  the  existing  con- 
dition of  things,  Johannes  von  M  tiller  writes : 8  'If  the 
German  Union  serves  for  nothing  better  than  to  maintain 
the  status  quo,  it  is  against  the  eternal  order  of  God, 
by  which  neither  the  physical  nor  the  moral  world 
remains  for  a  moment  in  the  status  quo,  but  all  is  life  and 
motion  and  progress.  To  exist  without  law  or  justice, 
without  security  from  arbitrary  imposts,  doubtful  whether 
we  can  preserve  from  day  to  day  our  children,  our  honour, 
our  liberties,  our  rights,  our  lives,  helpless  before  superior 
force,  without  a  beneficial  connection  between  our  states, 
without  a  national  spirit  at  all,  this  is  the  status  quo 
of  our  nation.  And  it  was  this  that  the  Union  was 
meant  to  maintain.  If  it  be  this  and  nothing  more,  then 
bethink  you  how  when  Israel  saw  that  Rehoboam  would 

•  Dcuischlands  Erwartungen  vom  Fiirstenbunde. 


LAST   STAGE  IN   THE   DECLINE   OF   THE   EMPIRE     407 

not  hearken,  the  people  gave  answer  to   the   king   and  CHAP.  xx. 
spake,  "  What  portion  have  we  in  David,  or  what  inherit- 
ance in  the  son  of  Jesse  ?  to  your  tents,  O  Israel :   David, 
see  to  thine  own  house."     See  then  to  your  own  houses, 
ye  princes.' 

Nevertheless,  though  the  Empire  stood  like  a  corpse 
brought  forth  from  some  Egyptian  sepulchre,  ready  to 
crumble  at  a  touch,  there  seemed  no  reason  why  it  should 
not  stand  so  for  centuries  more.  Fate  was  kind,  and  slew 
it  in  the  light. 


CHAPTER   XXI 

FALL    OF    THE    EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xxi.  GOETHE  has  described  the  uneasiness  with  which,  in  the 
Francis  ii,  days  of  his  childhood,  the  burghers  of  his  native  Frankfort 
saw  the  walls  of  the  Roman  Hall  covered  with  the  portraits 
of  Emperor  after  Emperor,  till  space  was  left  for  few,  at 
last  for  one.a  In  A.D.  1792  Francis  the  Second  mounted 
the  throne  of  Augustus,  and  the  last  place  was  filled. 
Three  years  before  there  had  arisen  on  the  western  horizon 
a  little  cloud,  no  bigger  than  a  man's  hand,  and  now  the 
heaven  was  black  with  storms  of  ruin.  There  was  a  pro- 
phecy,1* dating  from  the  first  days  of  the  Empire's  decline, 
that  when  all  things  were  falling  to  pieces,  and  wickedness 
rife  in  the  world,  a  second  Frankish  Charles  should  rise  as 
Emperor  to  purge  and  heal,  to  bring  back  peace  and  purify 
religion.  If  this  was  not  the  mission  of  the  avatar  who 
had  risen  to  be  First  Consul  and  thereafter  Emperor 
among  the  West  Franks,  he  was  at  least  anxious  to  tread 
in  the  steps  and  revive  the  glories  of  the  hero  whose  throne 
he  professed  to  have  again  erected.  We  may  smile  at  the 
historical  parallel  with  which  the  Bonapartist  courtiers 
flattered  their  lord  in  A.D.  1804,  the  parallel  between  the 
heir  of  a  long  line  of  fierce  Teutonic  chieftains,  whose 

•  Wahrheit  und  Dichtung,  bk.  i.  The  Romer  Saal  is  still  one  of  the  sights 
of  Frankfort.  The  portraits,  however,  which  one  now  sees  in  it,  seem  to  be 
all  or  nearly  all  of  them  modern ;  and  few  have  any  merit  as  works  of  art. 

b  Jordanis  Chronica,  ap.  Schardium,  Sylloge  Tractatuum, 

408 


FALL   OF   THE   EMPIRE  409 

vigorous  genius  had  seized  what  it  could  of  the  monkish  CHAP.  XXL 

learning  of  the  eighth  century,  and  the  son  of  the  Corsican  Napoleon, 

lawyer,  with  all  the  brilliance  of  a  Frenchman  and  all  the  Emper°r°f 

resolute  profundity  of  an  Italian,  reared  in,  yet  only  half 

believing,  the  ideas  of  the  Encyclopaedists,  swept  up  into 

the  seat  of  absolute  power  by  the  whirlwind  of  a  revolution. 

Alcuin  and  Talleyrand  are  not  more  unlike  than  are  their 

masters.     But  though  in  the  characters  and  temper  of  the 

men  there  is  little  resemblance,  though  their  Empires  agree 

in  this  only,  and  hardly  even  in  this,  that  both  were  founded 

on  conquest,  there  is  nevertheless  a  sort  of  grand  historical 

similarity  between  their  positions.     Both  were  the  leaders 

of  fiery  and  warlike  nations,  the  one  still  untamed  as  the 

creatures  of  their  native  woods,  the  other  drunk  with  revo- 

lutionary fury.     Both  aspired  to  found,  and  seemed  for  a 

time  to  have  succeeded  in  founding,  universal  monarchies. 

Both  were  gifted  with  a  strong  and  susceptible  imagination, 

which  if  it  sometimes  overbore  their  judgement,  was  yet  one 

of  the  truest  and  highest  elements  of  their  greatness.     As 

the  one  looked  back  to  the  kings  under  the  Jewish  theo- 

cracy and  the  Emperors  of  Christian  Rome,  so  the  other 

thought  to  model  himself  after  Julius  Caesar  and  Charle- 

magne.    For,  useful  as  was  the  fancied  precedent  of  the 

title  and  career  of  the  great  Carolingian  to  a  chief  deter- 

mined to  be  king,  yet  unable  to  be  king  after  the  fashion 

of  the  Bourbons,  and  seductive  as  was  such  a  connection 

to  the  imaginative  vanity  of  the  French  people,  it  was  no 

studied  purpose   or  simulating   art  that  led  Napoleon  to 

remind  his  subjects  so  frequently  of  the  hero  he  claimed 

to  represent.     No  one  who  reads  the  records  of  his  life  can  Belief  of 

doubt  that  he  believed,  as  fully  as  he  believed  anything,  NaP°leon 

J  J  that  he  was 

that  the  same  destiny  which  had  made  France  the  centre  the  successor 


of  the  modern  world  had  also  appointed  him  to  sit  on  the 
throne  and  carry  out  the  projects  of  "Charles  the  Frank,  to  magne' 


4io 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


Attitude  of 
the  Papacy 
towards 
Napoleon, 


CHAP.  xxi.  rule  all  Europe  from  Paris,  as  the  Caesars  had  ruled  it 
from  Rome.0  Imaginative  minds  are  apt  to  be  swept  away 
by  the  dreams  they  have  themselves  created.  Napoleon 
began  by  invoking  the  memories  of  Charlemagne  to  serve 
his  purposes :  the  memories  of  Charlemagne  ended  by 
dominating  him.  It  was  in  this  belief  that  he  went  to  the 
ancient  capital  of  the  Prankish  Emperors  to  receive  there 
the  Austrian  recognition  of  his  imperial  title :  that  he 
talked  of  '  revendicating '  Catalonia  and  Aragon,  because 
they  had  formed  a  part  of  the  Carolingian  realm,  though 
they  had  never  obeyed  any  descendant  of  Hugh  Capet : 
that  he  undertook  a  journey  to  Nimwegen,  where  he  had 
ordered  the  ancient  palace  to  be  restored,  and  inscribed  on 
its  walls  his  name  below  that  of  Charles  :  that  he  summoned 
Pius  VII  to  attend  his  coronation,  as  Pope  Stephen  had 
come  ten  centuries  before  to  instal  Pipin  in  the  throne  of 
the  last  Merovingian.  The  same  desire  to  be  regarded  as 
lawful  Emperor  of  the  West  shewed  itself  in  his  assump- 
tion of  the  Lombard  crown  at  Milan ;  in  the  words  of  the 
decree  by  which  he  annexed  Rome  to  the  Empire,  're- 
voking the  donations  which  my  predecessors,  the  French 
Emperors,  have  made';d  in  the  title  'King  of  Rome/ 
which  he  bestowed  on  his  ill-fated  son,  in  imitation  of  the 
German  '  King  of  the  Romans.' e  So  too  he  called  himself 
'Emperor  of  the  French,'  not  'of  France' :  and  as  he  had 
brought  within  his  dominions  not  only  parts  of  North- 
western Germany  but  also  Rome  and  the  Papal  states, 
'the  Empire'  had  plainly  become  much  more  than  French. 
It  was,  like  the  Carolingian  realm,  not  a  national  monarchy, 

c  See  Note  XIV  at  end. 

d  '  Je  n'ai  pu  concilier  ces  grands  interets  [of  political  order  and  the  spirit- 
ual authority  of  the  Pope]  qu'en  annulant  les  donations  des  empereurs  fran- 
?ais,  mes  predecesseurs,  et  en  reunissant  les  etats  remains  a  la  France.'  — 
Proclamation  issued  in  1809;  Oeuvres,  iv. 

e  See  Appendix,  Note  C. 


FALL  OF  THE   EMPIRE  411 

though  one  which  rested  on  the  dominance  of  a  nation.1  CHAP.  xxi. 
We  are  even  told  that  it  was  at  one  time  his  intention  to 
eject  the  Hapsburgs,  and  be  chosen  Roman  Emperor  in 
their  stead.  Had  this  been  done,  the  analogy  would  have 
been  complete  between  the  position  which  the  French 
ruler  held  to  the  house  of  Austria  now,  and  that  in  which 
Charles  and  Otto  had  stood  to  the  distant  Caesars  of  the 
East.  It  was  curious  to  see  the  spiritual  head  of  the 
Catholic  Church  turning  away  from  his  ancient  ally  to 
the  reviving  power  of  France — France,  where  the  God- 
dess of  Reason  had  been  honoured  with  festivals  eight 
years  before  —  just  as  his  predecessor  had  sought  the  help 
of  the  first  Carolingians  against  his  Lombard  enemies.8 
The  difference  was  indeed  great  between  the  feelings 
wherewith  Pius  the  Seventh  addressed  his  'very  dear  son 
in  Christ,'  and  those  that  had  pervaded  the  intercourse  of 
Pope  Hadrian  the  First  with  the  son  of  Pipin  ;  just  as  the 
contrast  is  strange  between  the  principles  that  shaped 
Napoleon's  policy  and  the  vision  of  a  theocracy  that  had 
floated  before  the  mind  of  Charles.  Neither  comparison  is 
much  to  the  advantage  of  the  modern  ;  but  Pius  might  be 
pardoned  for  catching  at  any  help  in  his  distress,  and 
Napoleon  found  that  the  protectorship  of  the  Church 
strengthened  his  position  in  France,  and  gave  him  dignity 
in  the  eyes  of  Christendom.11 

f  He  did  not  annex  Spain  and  Naples  to  '  the  Empire,'  but  kept  them  as 
separate  kingdoms  under  his  brothers  (the  latter  ultimately  under  Murat). 
There  were  political  reasons  for  this  course,  but  it  is  at  least  an  interesting 
coincidence  that  neither  country  had  belonged  to  the  Carolingian  Empire. 

8  Pope  Pius  VII  wrote  to  the  First  Consul, '  Carissime  in  Christo  Fili  noster 
.  .  .  tarn  perspecta  sunt  nobis  tuae  voluntatis  studia  erga  nos,  ut  quotiescunque 
ope  aliqua  in  rebus  nostris  indigemus,  earn  a  te  fidenter  petere  non  dubitare 
debeamus.' 

h  Let  us  place  side  by  side  the  letters  of  Hadrian  to  Charles  in  the  Codex 
Carolinus,  and  the  following  preamble  to  the  Concordat  of  A.D.  1801,  be- 


412  THE    HOLY    ROMAN    EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xxi.  A  swift  succession  of  triumphs  had  left  only  one  thing 
still  preventing  the  full  recognition  of  the  Corsican  warrior 
as  sovereign  of  Western  Europe,  and  that  one  was  the 

The  French,  existence  of  the  old  Romano-Germanic  Empire.  Napo- 
not  \ong  assumed  his  new  title  when  he  began 


A.D.  1804. 

to  mark  a  distinction  between  'la  France'  and  '1'Empire 
frangais.'  France  had,  since  A.D.  1792,  advanced  to  the 
Rhine,  and,  by  the  annexation  of  Piedmont,  had  over- 
stepped the  Alps  ;  the  French  Empire  included,  besides 
the  kingdom  of  Italy,  a  mass  of  dependent  states,  Naples, 
Holland,  Switzerland,  and  many  German  principalities, 
the  allies  of  France  in  the  same  sense  in  which  the  '  socii 
populi  Romani  '  were  allies  of  Rome.  When  the  last  of 
AJ>.  1805.  Pitt's  coalitions  had  been  destroyed  at  Austerlitz,  and 
Austria  had  made  her  submission  by  the  peace  of  Pres- 
burg,  the  conqueror  felt  that  his  hour  was  come.  He  had 
now  overcome  two  Emperors,  those  of  Austria  and  Russia, 
claiming  to  represent  the  old  and  the  new  Rome  respec- 
tively, and  had  in  eighteen  months  created  more  kings 
than  had  the  occupants  of  the  Romano-Germanic  throne 
in  as  many  centuries.  It  was  time,  he  thought,  to  sweep 
away  obsolete  pretensions,  and  claim  the  sole  inheritance 
of  that  Western  Empire,  of  which  the  titles  and  ceremonies 
of  his  court  presented  a  grotesque  imitation.1  The  task 

tween  the  First  Consul  and  the  Pope  (which  I  quote  from  the  Bullarium 
Romanum),  and  mark  the  changes  of  a  thousand  years. 

'Gubernium  reipublicae  [Gallicae]  recognoscit  religionem  Catholicam 
Apostolicam  Romanam  earn  esse  religionem  quam  longe  maxima  pars  civium 
Gallicae  reipublicae  profitetur. 

'Summus  pontifex  pari  modo  recognoscit  eandem  religionem  maximam 
utilitatem  maximumque  decus  percepisse  et  hoc  quoque  tempore  praestolari 
ex  catholico  cultu  in  Gallia  constitute,  necnon  ex  peculiar!  eius  professione 
quam  faciunt  reipublicae  consules.' 

1  He  had  arch-  chancellors,  arch-treasurers,  and  so  forth.  The  Legion  of 
Honour,  which  was  thought  important  enough  to  be  mentioned  in  the  core- 


FALL  OF   THE   EMPIRE  413 

was  an  easy  one  after  what  had  been  already  accomplished.  CHAP.  XXL 
Previous  wars  and  treaties  had  so  redistributed  the  terri-  Napoleon  in 
tories  and  changed  the  constitution  of  the  Germanic  Em-  Germany- 
pire  that  it  could  hardly  be  said  to  exist  in  anything  but 
name.  In  French  history  Napoleon  appears  as  the  restorer 
of  peace,  the  rebuilder  of  the  shattered  edifice  of  social 
order,  the  author  of  a  code  and  an  administrative  system 
which  the  Bourbons  who  dethroned  him  were  glad  to 
preserve.  Abroad  he  was  the  true  child  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, and  conquered  only  to  destroy.  It  was  his  mission 
—  a  mission  more  beneficent  in  its  result  than  in  its  inten- 
tion or  its  means 3  —  to  break  up  in  Germany  and  Italy  the 
pernicious  system  of  petty  principalities,  to  reawaken  the 
spirit  of  the  people,  to  sweep  away  the  relics  of  an  out- 
worn feudalism,  and  leave  the  ground  clear  for  the  growth 
of  newer  and  better  forms  of  political  life.  Since  A.D.  1797, 
when  Austria  at  Campo  Formio  perfidiously  exchanged 
the  Netherlands  for  the  territories  of  Venice,  territories 
which  she  had  no  more  right  to  receive  than  the  French 
Republic  had  to  give,  the  work  of  destruction  had  gone  on 
apace.  All  the  German  princes  west  of  the  Rhine  had 
been  dispossessed,  and  their  territories  incorporated  with 
France,  while  the  rest  of  the  country  had  been  revolu- 
tionized by  the  arrangements  of  the  Peace  of  Luneville 
and  the  '  Indemnities,'  dictated  by  the  French  to  the  Diet 
in  February  1803.  New  kingdoms  were  erected,  electo- 
rates created  and  extinguished,  the  lesser  princes  media- 
tized, the  free  cities  occupied  by  troops  and  bestowed 

nation  oath,  was  meant  to  be  something  like  the  mediaeval  orders  of  knight- 
hood, whose  connection  with  the  Empire  has  already  been  mentioned. 

i  Napoleon's  feelings  towards  Germany  may  be  gathered  from  the  phrase 
he  once  used,  '  II  faut  depayser  1'Allemagne.' 

Again,  in  a  letter  to  his  brother  Louis,  he  says,  '  You  must  know  that  the 
annihilation  of  German  nationality  is  a  necessary  leading  principle  of  my 
policy.' 


414  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xxi.  on  some  neighbouring  potentate.  More  than  any  other 
change,  the  •  secularization  of  the  dominions  of  the  prince- 
bishops  and  abbots  proclaimed  the  fall  of  the  old  constitu- 
tion, whose  principles  had  required  the  existence  of  a 
spiritual  alongside  of  the  temporal  aristocracy.  The  Em- 
peror Francis,  partly  foreboding  the  events  that  were 
at  hand,  partly  in  order  to  meet  Napoleon's  assumption 
of  the  imperial  name  by  depriving  that  name  of  its  special 
meaning  and  sanctity,  began  in  A.D.  1805  to  style  himself 
'  Hereditary  Emperor  of  Austria,'  while  not  yet  abandon- 
ing his  former  title.*  The  next  act  of  the  drama  was  one 
in  which  we  may  more  readily  pardon  the  ambition  of  a 
foreign  conqueror  than  the  selfishness  of  the  German 
princes,  who  broke  every  tie  of  ancient  friendship  and 

The  Confede-  duty  to  grovel  at  his  throne.  By  the  Act  of  the  Con- 
federation  of  the  Rhine,1  signed  at  Paris,  July  17,  1806, 
Bavaria,  Wiirtemberg,  Baden,  and  several  other  states, 
sixteen  in  all,  withdrew  from  the  body  and  repudiated  the 
laws  of  the  Empire,  while  on  August  ist  the  French  en- 
voy at  Regensburg  announced  to  the  Diet  that  his  master, 
who  had  consented  to  become  Protector  of  the  Confederate 


k  Thus  in  documents  issued  by  the  Emperor  during  these  two  years  he  is 
styled  '  Roman  Emperor  Elect,  Hereditary  Emperor  of  Austria '  (erwahlter 
Romischer  Kaiser,  Erbkaiser  von  Oesterreich). 

1  This  Act  of  Confederation  of  the  Rhine  (Rheinbund)  is  printed  in  Koch's 
Traites  (continued  by  Scholl),  vol.  viii,  and  Meyer's  Corpus  luris  Confoedera- 
tionis  Germanicae,  vol.  i.  It  has  every  appearance  of  being  a  translation  from 
the  French,  and  was  no  doubt  originally  drawn  up  in  that  language.  Napo- 
leon is  called  in  one  place  '  Der  namliche  Monarch,  dessen  Absichten  sich 
stets  mit  den  wahren  Interessen  Deutschlands  iibereinstimmend  gezeigt  haben.' 
(The  said  Monarch,  whose  views  have  shewn  themselves  always  in  accord  with 
the  true  interests  of  Germany.)  The  phrase  '  Roman  Empire  '  does  not  occur; 
we  hear  only  of  the  '  German  Empire,'  '  body  of  German  states '  (Staats- 
korper),  and  so  forth.  This  Confederation  of  the  Rhine  was  eventually 
joined  by  every  German  state  except  Austria,  Prussia,  Electoral  Hessen,  and 
Brunswick. 


FALL  OF  THE  EMPIRE  415 

princes,  no  longer  recognized  the  existence  of  the  Empire.   CHAP.  xxi. 
Francis  the  Second  resolved  at  once  to  anticipate  this  new  Abdication 
Odoacer,  and  by  a  declaration,  dated  August  6th,    1806,  °fthe 

.,..'.  Emperor 

resigned  the  imperial  dignity.     The  instrument  announces  Francis  n. 

that  finding  it  impossible,  in  the  altered  state  of  things,  to 

fulfil  the  obligations  imposed  by  the  engagements  taken 

at  his  election  he  considers  as  dissolved  the  bonds  which 

attached  him  to  the  Germanic  body,  releases  from  their 

allegiance  the  states  of  which  it  consisted,  and  retires  to 

the  government  of   his  hereditary  dominions  under   the 

title  of  '  Emperor  of  Austria.'  m     Throughout,  the  term 

'  German  Empire  '  (Deutsches  Reich)  is  employed.     But  it 

was  the  crown  of  Augustus,  of  Constantine,  of  Charles, 

of   Otto,  of   Maximilian,  that    Francis  of   Hapsburg  laid 

down,  and  a  new  era  in  the  world's  history  was  marked 

by  the  fall  of  its  most  venerable  institution.     One  thousand  End  of  the 

and  six  years  after  Leo  the  Pope  had  crowned  the  Frank-  Emftre- 

ish  king  in  St.  Peter's,  eighteen  hundred  and  fifty-eight 

years  after  Caesar  had  conquered  at  Pharsalia,  the  Holy 

Roman  Empire  came  to  its  end. 

There  was  a  time  when  this  event  would  have  been 
thought  a  sign  that  the  last  days  of  the  world  were  at 
hand.  But  in  the  whirl  of  change  that  had  bewildered 
men  since  A.D.  1789,  it  passed  almost  unnoticed.  No  one 
could  yet  fancy  how  things  would  end,  or  what  sort  of  a 
new  order  would  at  last  shape  itself  out  of  chaos.  When 
Napoleon's  universal  monarchy  had  dissolved,  and  the  old 
'andmarks  shewed  themselves  again  above  the  receding 

m  Histoire  des  Traites,  vol.  viii.  The  original  may  be  found  in  Meyer's 
Corpus  luris  Confoederationis  Germanicae,  vol.  i.  p.  70.  It  is  a  document 
in  no  way  remarkable,  except  from  the  ludicrous  resemblance  which  its  lan- 
guage suggests  to  the  circular  in  which  a  tradesman,  announcing  the  disso- 
lution of  an  old  partnership,  solicits,  and  hopes  that  by  close  attention  to 
business  he  may  merit,  a  continuance  of  his  customers'  patronage  to  his 
business,  which  will  henceforth  be  carried  on  under  the  name  of,  &c.,  £c. 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  xxi.  waters,  it  was  commonly  supposed  that  the  Empire  would 
be  re-established  on  its  former  footing.11  Such  was  indeed 
the  wish  of  many  states,  and  among  them  of  Great  Britain, 
whose  sovereign  was  in  respect  of  Hanover  a  member  of 
the  Germanic  body.0  Though  a  simple  revival  of  the  old 
Romano-Germanic  Empire  was  plainly  out  of  the  question, 
it  still  appeared  to  them  that  Germany  would  be  best  off 
under  the  presidency  of  a  single  head,  entrusted  with  the 
ancient  office  of  maintaining  peace  among  the  members  of 
the  confederation.  But  the  new  kingdoms,  Bavaria  espe- 
cially, were  unwilling  to  admit  a  superior ;  Prussia,  elated 
at  the  glory  she  had  won  in  the  war  of  independence, 
would  have  disputed  the  crown  with  Austria ;  Austria 
herself  cared  little  to  resume  an  office  shorn  of  much  of 
its  dignity,  with  duties  to  perform  and  no  resources  to 
enable  her  to  discharge  them.  Use  was  therefore  made 
of  an  expression  in  the  Peace  of  Paris  which  spoke  of 
uniting  the  German  states  by  a  federal  bond,p  and  the 
Congress  of  Vienna  was  decided  by  the  wishes  of  Austria 
and  the  difficulty  of  bringing  the  various  monarchs  to 
agree  to  anything  else,  to  establish  a  league  of  states. 
Thus  was  brought  into  existence  the  Germanic  Confedera- 
tion—  an  institution  confessed  almost  from  its  birth  to 


n  Koch  (Scholl),  Histoire  des  Traites,  vol.  xi.  pp.  257  sqq.;  Hausser, 
Deutsche  Geschichte,  vol.  iv. 

0  Great  Britain  had  refused  in  1 806  to  recognize  the  dissolution  of  the 
Empire.  And  it  may  indeed  be  maintained  that  in  point  of  law  the  Empire 
was  never  extinguished  at  all,  but  lived  on  as  a  sort  of  disembodied  spirit. 
For  it  is  clear  that,  technically  speaking,  the  abdication  of  a  sovereign  de- 
stroys only  his  own  rights,  and  does  not  dissolve  the  state  over  which  he  pre- 
sides. Perhaps  the  Elector  of  Saxony  might,  legally,  as  imperial  Vicar  during 
an  interregnum,  have  summoned  the  electoral  college  to  meet  and  choose  a 
new  Emperor. 

P  '  Les  etats  d'Allemagne  seront  independans  et  unis  par  un  lien  federatif.' 
—  Histoire  des  Traites,  vol.  xi.  p.  257. 


FALL  OF   THE   EMPIRE  417 

be  a  temporary  expedient,  an  unsatisfactory  compromise  CHAP,  xxi 

between  the  reality  of  local  sovereignty  and  the  semblance  The  Ger- 

of   national   union,    which,    after   an    ignoble    and   often-  mamc  Con' 

........  ,  .  ,  federation, 

threatened  life  of  half  a  century,  fell  unregretted  upon  the  A  D  I8l5_ 

fields  of  Koniggratz  and  Langensalza.  1866. 


CHAPTER   XXII 

SUMMARY   AND   REFLECTIONS 

CHAP.  xxii.  AFTER  what  has  been  already  said  in  examining  each 
of  the  phases  through  which  the  Holy  Empire  passed, 
only  a  few  concluding  pages  are  needed  to  describe  its 
character  and  to  sum  up  the  results  of  its  long-continued 
General  life.  A  general  character  can  hardly  help  being  either 
summary.  vague  or  misleading,  for  the  aspects  which  the  Empire 
took  are  as  many  and  as  various  as  the  ages  and  condi- 
tions of  society  during  which  it  continued  to  exist. 
Among  the  peoples  around  the  Mediterranean,  whose  na- 
tional feeling  had  died  out,  whose  national  faiths  were 
extinct  or  had  turned  to  superstition,  whose  thought  and 
art  had  lost  their  force  and  freshness,  there  arose  a  gi- 
gantic military  power,  the  power  first  of  a  city,  then  of 
an  administrative  system  culminating  in  an  irresponsible 
monarch,  which  pressing  with  equal  weight  on  all  its  sub- 
jects, gave  them  a  new  imperial  nationality,  and  became 
to  them  a  religion  as  well  as  a  government.  When  this 
system,  weakened  by  internal  decay,  was  at  length  begin- 
ning to  dissolve,  the  tribes  of  the  North  came  down,  too 
rude  to  maintain  the  elaborate  institutions  they  found 
subsisting,  too  few  and  scattered  to  introduce  their  own 
simpler  institutions,  and  in  the  weltering  confusion  that 
followed,  the  idea  of  a  civilized  commonwealth  would  have 
perished,  had  not  the  association  of  a  young  and  vigorous 
faith  with  the  name  and  the  authority  of  Rome  formed  the 
foundation  for  a  new  unity,  politically  weak,  but  morally 
close  and  durable.  Then  the  strong  hand  of  the  first 

418 


SUMMARY  AND   REFLECTIONS  419 

Prankish  Emperor  raised  the  fallen  image  and  bade  the  CHAP.  xxn. 
nations  bow  down  to  it  once  more.  Under  him  it  was  for 
some  brief  space  a  sort  of  military  theocracy ;  under  his 
German  successors  the  first  of  feudal  kingdoms,  the  centre 
of  European  chivalry.  As  feudalism  wanes,  the  imperial 
office,  as  well  as  the  imperial  idea,  was  again  transformed, 
and  after  promising  for  a  time  to  become  an  hereditary 
Hapsburg  monarchy,  it  sank  at  last  into  the  presidency,  not 
more  dignified  than  powerless,  of  an  international  league. 

To  the  modern  world,  penetrated  by  a  critical  and  prac-  Perpetuation 
tical  spirit,  a  perpetuation  under  conditions  so  diverse  of  °ft^ename 

of  Rome. 

the  same  name  and  the  same  pretensions  appears  at  first 
sight  absurd,  a  phantom  too  vain  to  impress  the  most 
superstitious  mind.  Closer  examination  corrects  such  a 
notion.  No  power  was  ever  based  on  foundations  more 
sure  and  deep  than  those  which  Rome  laid  during  three 
centuries  of  conquest  and  four  of  undisturbed  dominion. 
If  her  empire  had  been  an  hereditary  or  local  kingdom,  it 
might  have  fallen  with  the  extinction  of  the  royal  line,  the 
overthrow  of  the  tribe,  the  destruction  of  the  city,  to  which 
it  was  attached.  But  it  was  not  so  limited.  It  was  imper- 
ishable because  it  was  universal ;  and  when  its  power  had 
ceased,  it  was  remembered  with  awe  and  love  by  the  races 
whose  separate  existence  it  had  destroyed,  because  it  had 
spared  the  weak  while  it  smote  down  the  strong ;  because 
it  had  granted  equal  rights  to  all,  and  closed  against  none 
of  its  subjects  the  path  of  honourable  ambition.  When 
the  military  power  of  the  conquering  city  had  departed, 
her  sway  over  the  world  of  thought  began.  By  her  the 
Greek  theory  of  a  commonwealth  of  mankind  had  been 
reduced  to  practice ;  the  magic  of  her  name  remained, 
and  she  held  a  sway  over  the  imagination  which  the  pass- 
ing of  century  after  century  scarcely  reduced.  She  had 
gathered  up  and  embodied  in  her  literature  and  institu- 


420 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


Parallel 
instances. 


Claims  to 
represent  the 
Roman 
Empire. 
Austria. 


CHAP.  xxii.  tions  all  the  ideas  and  all  the  practical  results  of  ancient 
thought.  Embracing  and  organizing  and  propagating  the 
new  religion,  she  made  it  seem  her  own.  Her  language, 
her  theology,  her  laws,  her  architecture,  made  their  way 
where  the  eagles  of  war  had  never  winged  their  flight,  and 
with  the  spread  of  civilization  have  found  new  homes  on 
the  Ganges  and  the  Mississippi. 

Nor  is  such  a  claim  of  government  prolonged  under 
changed  conditions  by  any  means  a  singular  phenomenon. 
Titles  sum  up  the  political  history  of  nations,  and  are  as 
often  causes  as  effects  :  if  significant  to-day,  how  much 
more  so  in  ages  of  ignorance  when  tradition  was  stronger 
than  reason.  Even  in  our  time  various  pretensions  have 
been  put  forward  to  represent  the  Empire  of  Rome,  all  of 
them  without  historical  foundation,  none  of  them  without 
practical  import.  Austria  clings  to  a  name  which  seems 
to  perpetuate  the  primacy  held  by  Charles  the  Fifth  in 
Europe,  and  was  wont,  while  she  held  Lombardy,  to  jus- 
tify her  position  there  by  invoking  the  feudal  rights  of  the 
Franconian  and  Swabian  sovereigns.  With  no  more  legal 
right  than  a  prince  of  Reuss  or  a  grand  duke  of  Mecklen- 
burg might  pretend  to,  she  continued  after  the  disappear- 
ance of  the  old  Empire  to  use  its  arms  and  devices,  and 
being  almost  the  youngest  of  European  monarchies,  she 
became  respected  as  the  oldest  and  most  conservative. 
Bonapartean  France,  as  the  self-appointed  heir  of  the 
Carolingians,  grasped  for  a  time  the  sceptre  of  the  West, 
and  under  the  ruler  who  fell  in  1870  aspired  to  hold  the 
balance  of  European  politics,  and  be  recognized  as  the 
leader  and  patron  of  the  so-called  '  Latin  races '  on  both 
sides  of  the  Atlantic.*  Professing  the  creed  of  Constanti- 

*  This  was  put  forward  in  Louis  Napoleon's  letter  to  General  Forey, 
explaining  the  object  of  that  unlucky  expedition  to  Mexico  which  helped  to 
undermine  his  throne. 


France. 


SUMMARY   AND   REFLECTIONS  421 

nople,  Russia  claims  the  crown  of  the  Eastern  Caesars,  CHAP.XXIL 
and  looks  forward  to  the  day  when  the  capital  which  Xtusia. 
prophecy  has  promised  for  a  thousand  years  will  echo  to 
the  tramp  of  her  armies.  The  doctrine  of  Panslavism, 
under  an  imperial  head  of  the  Orthodox  Eastern  Church, 
has  become  a  formidable  engine  of  aggression  in  the  hands 
of  a  mighty  despotism  and  a  growing  race,  naturally  drawn 
to  expand  its  frontiers  toward  the  south.  Another  tes-  Greece. 
timony  to  the  enduring  influence  of  old  political  combi- 
nations is  supplied  by  the  eagerness  with  which  modern 
Hellas  embraced  the  notion  of  gathering  the  peoples 
of  South-eastern  Europe  and  Asia  Minor  that  profess 
the  Orthodox  creed  into  a  revived  Empire  of  the  East,  The  Turks. 
with  its  capital  on  the  Bosphorus.  Nay,  the  intruding 
Ottoman  himself,  different  in  faith  as  well  as  in  blood, 
long  ago  declared  himself  the  representative  of  the  East- 
ern Caesars,  whose  dominion  he  extinguished.  Sultan 
Suleiman  the  Magnificent  assumed  the  name  of  Emperor, 
and  refused  it  to  Charles  the  Fifth ;  his  successors  were 
once  preceded  through  the  streets  of  Constantinople  by 
twelve  officers,  bearing  straws  aloft,  a  faint  semblance  of 
the  consular  fasces  that  had  escorted  a  Quinctius  or  a 
Fabius  through  the  Roman  forum.  Yet  in  no  one  of 
these  cases  was  there  that  apparent  legality  of  title  which 
the  shouts  of  the  people  and  the  benediction  of  the  pontiff 
conveyed  to  Charles  and  Otto.b 

These  examples,  however,  are  minor  parallels  :  the  com-  Paraiuiof 
plement  and  illustration  of  the  history  of  the  Empire  is  to  the  paPa(y- 

b  Many  other  instances  might  be  adduced :  consider  for  instance  the  per- 
petuation of  the  office  of  consul  at  Rome  and  Constantinople  for  at  least  five 
centuries  after  it  had  ceased  to  carry  power  ;  consider  the  retention  long  after 
all  claims  to  France  had  been  abandoned  of  the  title  '  King  of  Great  Britain, 
France,  and  Ireland '  (its  ultimate  relinquishment  distressed  many  persons) ; 
consider  the  retention  to-day  in  Great  Britain  of  the  title  '  Defender  of  the 


422  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xxii.  be  found  in  that  of  the  Holy  See.  The  Papacy,  whose 
spiritual  power  was  itself  the  offspring  of  Rome's  temporal 
dominion,  evoked  the  phantom  of  her  parent,  used  it, 
obeyed  it,  rebelled  and  overthrew  it,  in  its  old  age  once 
more  drew  it  to  her  bosom,  till  in  its  downfall  she  heard 
the  knell  of  the  old  order  and  saw  the  end  of  her  own 
temporal  power  approaching. 

Both  Papacy  and  Empire  rose  in  an  age  when  the 
human  spirit  was  prostrated  before  authority  and  tradi- 
tion, when  the  exercise  of  private  judgement  was  impos- 
sible to  most  and  sinful  to  all.  Those  who  believed  the 
miracles  recorded  in  the  Acta  Sanctorum,  and  did  not 
question  the  Pseudo-Isidorian  decretals,  might  well  recog- 
nize as  ordained  of  God  the  twofold  authority  of  Rome, 
founded,  as  it  seemed  to  be,  on  so  many  texts  of  Scripture, 
and  confirmed  by  five  centuries  of  undisputed  possession. 

Both  sanctioned  and  satisfied  the  passion  of  the  Middle 
Ages  for  Unity.  Ferocity,  violence,  disorder,  were  the 
conspicuous  evils  of  that  time  :  hence  all  the  aspirations 
of  the  good  were  for  something  which,  breaking  the  force 
of  passion  and  increasing  the  force  of  sympathy,  should 
teach  the  stubborn  wills  to  sacrifice  themselves  in  the  view 
of  a  common  purpose.  To  those  men,  moreover,  unable 
to  rise  above  the  sensuous,  seeing  with  eyes  unlike  ours 
both  the  connection  and  the  difference  of  the  spiritual 
and  the  secular  elements  in  life,  the  idea  of  the  Visible 
Church  was  full  of  awful  meaning.  Solitary  thought  was 
helpless,  and  strove  to  lose  itself  in  the  aggregate,  since 
it  could  not  create  for  itself  that  which  was  universal. 

Faith '  (when  it  had  been  dropped  from  a  new  coin  public  opinion  compelled 
the  renewal  of  its  use) ;  consider  the  refusal  of  the  Count  of  Chambord,  heir 
to  the  throne  of  France,  to  accept  the  crown  when  it  was  virtually  within  his 
grasp,  unless  he  was  permitted  to  use  the  white  flag  of  Henry  IV  instead  of 
the  tricolour. 


SUMMARY   AND   REFLECTIONS  423 

The  schism  that  severed  a  man  from  the  congregation  of  CHAP.XXIL 
the  faithful  on  earth  was  hardly  less  dreadful  than  the 
heresy  which  excluded  him  from  the  company  of  the 
blessed  in  heaven.  He  who  kept  not  his  appointed  place 
in  the  ranks  of  the  Church  militant  had  no  right  to  swell 
the  rejoicing  anthems  of  the  Church  triumphant.  Here, 
as  in  so  many  other  cases,  the  continued  use  of  traditional 
language  prevents  men  from  seeing  how  great  is  the  differ- 
ence between  their  own  times  and  those  in  which  the 
phrases  they  repeat  were  first  used,  and  used  in  full  sin- 
cerity. Whether  the  world  is  better  or  worse  for  the 
change  which  has  passed  upon  its  feelings  in  these  mat- 
ters is  another  question  :  all  that  is  necessary  to  note  here 
is  that  the  change  is  a  profound  and  pervading  one.  Obedi- 
ence, almost  the  first  of  mediaeval  virtues,  is  now  often 
spoken  of  as  if  it  were  fit  only  for  slaves  or  fools.  In- 
stead of  praising,  men  are  wont  to  condemn  the  submission 
of  the  individual  will,  the  surrender  of  the  individual  belief, 
to  the  will  or  the  belief  of  the  community.  Some  persons 
declare  variety  of  opinion  to  be  a  positive  good.  The  great 
mass  have  little  longing  for  a  perfect  unity  of  faith.  They 
have  no  horror  of  schism.  They  cannot  understand  the 
fascination  which  the  idea  of  one  all-embracing,  all-pervad- 
ing Church  exercised  upon  their  mediaeval  forefathers.  A 
life  in  the  Church,  for  the  Church,  through  the  Church  ;  a 
life  which  she  blessed  in  mass  at  morning  and  sent  to 
peaceful  rest  by  the  vesper  hymn  ;  a  life  which  she  sup- 
ported by  the  constantly  recurring  stimulus  of  the  sacra- 
ments, relieving  it  by  confession,  purifying  it  by  penance, 
admonishing  it  by  the  presentation  of  visible  objects  for 
contemplation  and  worship — this  was  the  life  which  they 
of  the  Middle  Ages  conceived  of  as  the  rightful  life  for 
man  ;  it  was  the  actual  life  of  many,  the  ideal  of  all.  The 
unseen  world  was  so  unceasingly  pointed  to,  and  its  de- 


424 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  xxn.  pendence  on  the  seen  so  intensely  felt,  that  the  barrier 
between  the  two  seemed  to  disappear.  The  Church  was 
not  merely  the  portal  to  heaven  ;  it  was  heaven  antici- 
pated ;  it  was  already  self-gathered  and  complete.  In  one 
sentence  from  a  singular  mediaeval  document  may  be 
found  a  key  to  much  which  seems  strangest  to  us  in  the 
feelings  of  the  Middle  Ages  :  '  The  Church  is  dearer  to 
God  than  heaven.  For  the  Church  does  not  exist  for  the 
sake  of  heaven,  but  conversely,  heaven  for  the  sake  of  the 
Church.' c 

Again,  both  Empire  and  Papacy  rested  on  opinion 
rather  than  on  material  force,  and  when  the  struggle 
which  began  in  the  eleventh  century  came,  the  Empire 
succumbed,  because  its  rival's  hold  over  the  souls  of  men 
was  firmer,  more  direct,  enforced  by  penalties  more  ter- 
rible than  the  death  of  the  body.  The  ecclesiastical  host 
which  Alexander  III  and  Innocent  IV  led  was  animated 
by  a  loftier  spirit  and  more  wholly  devoted  to  a  single  aim 
than  the  knights  and  nobles  who  followed  the  banner  of 
the  Swabian  Caesars.  Its  allegiance  was  undivided ;  it 
comprehended  the  principles  for  which  it  fought.  They 
trembled  at  even  while  they  resisted  the  spiritual  power. 
Both  sprang  from  what  might  seem  to  be  the  accident 
of  name.  The  power  of  the  great  Latin  patriarchate  was 
a  Form :  the  ghost,  it  has  been  said,  of  the  older  Empire, 
favoured  in  its  growth  by  circumstances,  but  really  vital 
because  capable  of  wonderful  adaptation  to  the  character 
and  wants  of  the  time.  So  too,  though  far  less  perfectly, 
was  the  Empire.  Its  Form  was  the  tradition  of  the  uni- 
versal rule  of  Rome ;  it  met  the  needs  of  successive  cen- 

c '  Ipsa  enim  ecclesia  charior  Deo  est  quam  coelum.  Non  enim  propter 
coelum  ecclesia,  sed  e  converse  propter  ecclesiam  coelum.'  From  the  tract 
entitled  '  A  Letter  of  the  four  Universities  to  the  Emperor  Wenzel  and  Pope 
Urban  VI,'  quoted  in  chapter  VII,  p.  105. 


Papacy  and 
Empire  com- 
pared as 
perpetuations 
of  a  name. 


SUMMARY   AND   REFLECTIONS  425 

turies  by  civilizing  barbarous  peoples,  by  maintaining  CHAP.XXII 
unity  in  confusion  and  disorganization,  by  controlling 
brute  violence  through  the  sanctions  of  a  higher  power, 
by  being  made  the  keystone  of  a  gigantic  feudal  arch,  by 
becoming  in  its  old  age  the  centre  of  a  European  states- 
system.  And  its  history,  as  it  shews  the  power  of  an- 
cient names  and  forms,  shews  also  how  hopeless  is  the 
attempt  to  preserve  in  life  a  system  which  arose  out  of 
ideas  and  under  conditions  that  have  passed  away,  how 
unreal  such  a  perpetuation  may  be,  and  how  it  may  de- 
ceive men,  by  preserving  the  shadow  while  it  loses  the 
substance.  This  perpetuation  itself,  what  is  it  but  the 
expression  of  the  belief  of  mankind,  a  belief  incessantly 
corrected  yet  never  weakened,  that  their  old  institutions 
can  continue  to  subsist  unchanged,  that  what  has  served 
their  fathers  will  do  well  enough  for  them,  that  it  is  pos- 
sible to  make  a  system  once  for  all  perfect  and  abide  in 
it  for  ever  thereafter  ?  Of  all  political  instincts  this  is 
perhaps  the  strongest ;  often  useful,  often  abused,  but 
never  more  natural  or  more  fitting  than  when  it  led  men 
who  felt  skill  and  knowledge  slipping  from  their  grasp 
to  seek  to  save  what  they  could  from  the  wreck  of  an 
older  and  higher  civilization.  It  was  thus  that  both 
Papacy  and  Empire  were  maintained  by  generations  who 
had  no  type  of  greatness  and  wisdom  save  that  which 
they  associated  with  the  name  of  Rome.  Though  it 
never  could  have  existed  save  as  a  prolongation,  though 
it  was  and  remained  through  the  Middle  Ages  an  anach- 
ronism, the  Empire  of  the  tenth  century  had  changed  pro- 
foundly from  the  Empire  of  the  second.  Much  more 
was  the  Papacy,  though  it  too  hankered  after  the  forms 
and  titles  of  antiquity,  a  truly  new  creation.  And  in  the 
same  proportion  as  it  was  new,  and  represented  the 
spirit  not  of  a  past  age  but  of  its  own,  was  it  a  power 


426 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP. xxn.  stronger  and  more  enduring  than  the  Empire.  More 
enduring,  because  more  lately  born,  and  so  in  fuller  har- 
mony with  the  ruling  spirit  and  cogent  needs  of  the  time, 
stronger,  because  at  the  head  of  the  great  ecclesiastical 
body,  in  and  through  which,  rather  than  through  secular 
life,  the  intelligence  and  political  activity  of  the  Middle 
Ages  sought  their  expression.  The  famous  simile  of 
Gregory  the  Seventh  is  that  which  best  describes  the 
Empire  and  the  Popedom.  They  were  indeed  the  'two 
lights  in  the  firmament  of  the  militant  .Church,'  the  lights 
which  illumined  and  ruled  the  world  all  through  the  Mid- 
dle Ages.  And  as  moonlight  is  to  sunlight,  so  was  the 
Empire  to  the  Papacy.  The  rays  of  the  one  were  bor- 
rowed, feeble,  often  interrupted :  the  other  shone  with 
an  unquenchable  brilliance  that  was  all  her  own. 

If  we  analyze  the  Papacy  and  the  Empire,  we  shall 
find  that  each  is  old,  and  each  is  new.  The  remark  is 
true  in  a  sense  of  all  institutions,  but  it  applies  in  a  special 
sense  to  these  two.  The  Papacy  was  new  in  the  doc- 
trines and  the  spirit  which  it  drew  from  Scripture  and 
Christian  tradition.  It  was  old  in  the  form  of  its  govern- 
ment, for  this  was  modelled  on  the  heathen  autocracy, 
old  also  in  the  application  of  compulsive  power  to  mat- 
ters of  opinion  and  belief,  than  which  nothing  could  be 
more  opposed  to  the  teachings  of  Christ.  The  Empire 
was  new  in  so  far  as  it  was  a  German  kingdom,  built  up 
on  feudal  principles ;  new  also  in  all  that  it  had  imbibed 
from  Christianity  —  in  the  sense  of  its  religious  mission, 
and  of  faith  as  a  bond  to  unite  mankind  in  one  world- 
embracing  state.  It  was  old  not  only  in  its  name  but  in 
the  effort  to  base  its  universal  dominion  upon  the  impre- 
scriptible rights  of  Rome,  and  in  the  autocratic  character 
which  its  adoption  of  the  ancient  Roman  law  as  its  own 
had  made  it,  at  least  in  outward  semblance,  assume. 


In  what  sense 
was  the  Em- 
pire Roman  ? 


SUMMARY   AND   REFLECTIONS  427 

This  distinction  between  its  component  elements  may  CHAP.XXII. 
help  to  supply  an  answer  to  the  question  which  the  stu- 
dent of  its  history  often  puts  to  himself — 'Was  it  Roman 
in  anything  but  name  ?  and  was  that  name  anything 
better  than  a  piece  of  fantastic  antiquarianism  ? '  A 
comparison  might  be  drawn  between  the  Antonines  of 
the  second  century  and  the  Ottos  of  the  tenth  which 
should  shew  nothing  but  unlikeness.  What  the  Empire 
was  in  the  second  century  every  student  of  the  ancient 
classics  knows.  In  the  tenth  it  was  a  feudal  monarchy, 
resting  on  a  strong  territorial  oligarchy.  Its  chiefs  were 
barbarians,  the  sons  of  those  who  had  destroyed  Varus 
and  baffled  Germanicus,  sometimes  unable  even  to  use 
the  tongue  of  Rome.  Its  powers,  nominally  wide,  were 
limited  by  custom  and  the  strength  of  the  great  vassals. 
It  could  scarcely  be  said  to  have  a  governmental  organiza- 
tion, whether  judicial  or  administrative.  It  was  conse- 
crated to  the  defence,  nay,  it  existed  by  virtue  of  the 
religion,  which  Trajan  and  Marcus  had  persecuted. 
Nevertheless,  however  strongly  the  contrast  be  stated 
points  of  resemblance  will  remain.  The  Roman  idea  of 
universal  denationalization  survived  as  an  idea,  and  drew 
with  it  that  of  a  certain  equality  among  all  free  subjects. 
The  world's  highest  dignity  was  for  many  centuries  the 
only  civil  office  to  which  any  free-born  Christian  was 
legally  eligible.  So  too  there  survived  the  Roman  con- 
ception of  Law,  written,  settled,  scientific  law,  as  the 
foundation  of  social  order,  as  the  regulator  of  the  relations 
of  members  of  the  community,  as  the  form  through  which 
the  state  must  act. 

It  may  be  added  that  there  was  among  the  Teutonic 
Emperors,  when  one  compares  them  as  a  whole  either 
with  the  East  Roman  monarchs  or  with  the  Muslim 
dynasties,  a  loftiness  of  spirit  and  a  sense  of  duty  to  the 


428 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP. xxii.  realm  they  ruled  which  recalls  the  old  Roman  type. 
Trajan  and  Marcus  might  have  found  their  true  successors 
among  the  woods  of  Germany  rather  than  in  the  palaces 
of  Constantinople,  where  every  office  and  name  and 
custom  had  floated  down  from  the  court  of  Theodosius 
in  a  stream  of  unbroken  legitimacy.  The  ceremonies  of 
Henry  the  Seventh's  coronation  would  have  been  strange 
indeed  to  Caius  Julius  Caesar  Octavianus  Augustus  ;  yet 
they  were  better  than  the  purple  buskins  of  Byzantium  : 
they  had  more  Roman  dignity  and  force  than  the  fantastic 
forms  with  which  a  Palaeologus  was  installed  !  Of  the 
Germanic  Empire  in  later  centuries  the  same  cannot  be 
said.  It  had  lived  on,  when  honour  and  nature  bade  it 
die  :  it  had  become  what  the  Empire  of  the  Moguls  had 
then  become,  and  that  of  the  Ottomans  still  later  became, 
a  curious  relic  of  antiquity,  on  which  the  philosopher 
might  muse,  but  from  which  the  vigour  of  life  and  all 
power  for  good  had  long  since  departed.  Institutions, 
however,  should,  like  men,  be  judged  by  their  prime. 
'imperial-  The  word  'Imperialism'  has  within  our  own  time  been 

zsm  :J*oma"'  used  in  varying  senses  and  has  evoked  diverse  feelings  of 
mediaeval.  attraction  and  repulsion.  From  the  time  when  the  first 
Bonaparte  took  the  title  of  Emperor  in  France  until  the 
fall  of  Louis  Napoleon  in  1870,  it  was  used  to  denote  a 
system  intended  to  imitate  that  which  Julius  Caesar  and 
his  subtle  nephew  erected  upon  the  ruins  of  the  republican 
constitution  of  Rome.  The  sacrifice  of  the  individual  to 
the  mass,  the  concentration  of  all  legislative  and  judicial 
powers  in  the  person  of  the  sovereign,  the  centralization  of 
the  administrative  system,  the  maintenance  of  order  by  a 
large  military  force,  the  substitution  of  the  influence  of 
public  opinion  for  the  control  of  representative  assemblies, 
were  commonly  taken,  whether  rightly  or  wrongly,  to 
characterize  that  system  :  and  the  glory  which  surrounded 


SUMMARY  AND   REFLECTIONS  429 

the  name  of  Rome,  the  peace  and  order  which  the  sway  CHAP.  xxn. 
of  the  Roman  Caesars  had,  in  its  best  days,  secured  for 
the  world,  were  used  to  recommend  Napoleonic   rule   in 
France  and   to  justify  French  predominance   in   Europe. 
That  system    has   passed   away,  those   memories   are   no 
longer  invoked.      Neither  with    Bonapartean   imperialism  Essential 
nor  with  other  more  recent  sense  given  to  the  term  had  PrinciPle3 " 

the  medid 

the  doctrines  on  which  the  mediaeval  Empire  rested  any-  Empire. 
thing  in  common.  There  was,  nevertheless,  a  thing  which 
may  be  called  mediaeval  imperialism,  a  theory  of  the  nature 
of  the  state  and  the  best  form  of  government,  of  which, 
since  it  has  been  already  described,*1  it  is  enough  to  say 
here,  that  from  three  leading  principles  all  its  properties 
may  be  derived.  The  first  and  not  the  most  essential  was 
the  existence  of  the  state  as  a  monarchy.  The  second 
was  the  exact  coincidence  of  the  Holy  State's  limits,  and 
the  perfect  harmony  of  its  workings  with  the  limits  and 
the  workings  of  Holy  Church.  The  third  was  its  univer- 
sality. These  three  were  vital.  Forms  of  political  organi- 
zation, the  presence  or  absence  of  constitutional  checks, 
the  degree  of  liberty  enjoyed  by  the  subject,  the  rights 
conceded  to  local  authorities,  all  these  were  matters  of 
secondary  importance.  But  although  there  brooded  over 
all  the  shadow  of  an  autocracy,  it  was  an  autocracy  not  of 
the  sword  but  of  law,  itself  subject  to  that  Law  of  Nature 
which  mediaeval  thinkers  recognized  as  the  expression  of 
the  will  of  a  righteous  God  ;  an  autocracy  not  chilling  and 
blighting,  but  one  which,  in  Germany  at  least,  looked  with 
favour  on  municipal  freedom,  and  everywhere  did  its  best 
for  learning,  for  religion,  for  intelligence ;  an  autocracy  not 
hereditary,  but  one  which  maintained  in  theory  the  princi- 
ple that  he  should  rule  who  was  found  the  fittest.  To 
praise  or  to  decry  the  Empire  as  a  despotic  power  is  to 

d  See  chapters  VII  and  XV,  ante. 


430 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


Influence  of 
the  Holy 
Empire  on 
Germany. 


CHAP.  xxii.  misunderstand  it  altogether.  We  need  not,  because  an 
unbounded  prerogative  was  useful  in  ages  of  turbulence, 
advocate  it  now  ;  nor  need  we,  with  Sismondi,  blame  the 
Prankish  conqueror  because  he  granted  no  '  constitutional 
charter'  to  all  the  nations  that  obeyed  him.  Like  the 
Papacy,  the  Empire  expressed  the  political  ideas  of  a  time, 
and  not  of  all  time :  like  the  temporal  power  of  the 
Papacy,  it  decayed  when  those  ideas  changed ;  when  men 
became  more  capable  of  rational  liberty,  when  thought 
grew  stronger,  and  the  spiritual  nature  shook  itself  more 
free  from  the  bonds  of  sense. 

The  influence  of  the  Empire  upon  Germany  may  in 
some  aspects  appear  altogether  unfortunate.  For  many 
generations  the  flower  of  Teutonic  chivalry  crossed  the 
Alps  to  perish  by  the  sword  of  the  Lombards,  or  the 
deadlier  fevers  of  Rome.  Italy  terribly  avenged  the  wrongs 
she  suffered.  Those  who  destroyed  the  national  existence 
of  another  people  forfeited  their  own.  The  German  king- 
dom, crushed  beneath  the  weight  of  the  Roman  Empire, 
could  never  recover  strength  enough  to  form  a  compact 
and  united  monarchy,  such  as  arose  elsewhere  in  Europe. 
The  race  whom  their  neighbours  had  feared  and  obeyed 
till  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century  saw  themselves, 
down  even  to  our  own  day,  the  prey  of  intestine  feuds  and 
their  country  the  battlefield  of  Europe.  Spoiled  and 
insulted  by  a  neighbour  restlessly  active  and  long  superior 
in  the  arts  of  success,  they  were  for  a  time  accustomed  to 
regard  France  as  the  downtrodden  Slavonic  tribes  regarded 
them.  The  want  of  national  union  and  political  liberty 
from  which  Germany  used  to  suffer  need  not  be  attributed 
to  the  differences  of  her  races  ;  for,  conspicuous  as  that  dif- 
ference was  in  the  days  of  Otto  the  Great,  it  was  less  con- 
spicuous than  in  France,  where  intruding  Franks,  Goths, 
Burgundians,  and  Northmen  were  mingled  with  primitive 


SUMMARY   AND   REFLECTIONS  431 

Celts  and  Basques;  less  conspicuous  than  in  Spain,  or  CHAP.XXIL 
Italy,  or  Britain.  Rather  was  it  due  to  that  decline  of  the 
central  government  which  was  induced  by  its  strife  with 
the  Popedom,  by  its  endless  Italian  wars,  by  the  passion 
for  universal  dominion  which  made  it  the  assailant  of  all 
the  neighbouring  countries.  The  absence  or  the  weakness 
of  the  embarrassed  monarch  enabled  his  feudal  vassals  to 
establish  petty  despotisms,  debarring  the  nation  from 
united  political  action,  and  greatly  retarding  the  emanci- 
pation of  the  commons.  Thus,  while  the  princes  became 
shamelessly  selfish,  justifying  their  resistance  to  the  throne 
as  the  defence  of  their  own  liberty  —  a  liberty  which 
included  the  oppression  of  their  subjects  — and  ready  on 
the  least  occasion  to  throw  themselves  into  the  arms  of 
France,  the  body  of  the  people  were  deprived  of  all  politi- 
cal training,  and  found  the  lack  of  such  experience  impede 
their  efforts  down  to  our  own  time. 

For  such  misfortunes,  however,  as  the  Empire  entailed 
upon  the  nation  there  was  not  wanting  some  compensa- 
tion. The  inheritance  of  the  Roman  Empire  made  the 
Germans  the  ruling  race  of  Europe,  and  the  brilliance  of 
that  glorious  dawn  could  never  fade  entirely  from  their 
name.  Even  in  those  later  days  when  they  lived  as  a 
peaceful  people,  acquiescent  in  paternal  government,  and 
given  to  the  quiet  enjoyments  of  art,  music,  and  medita- 
tion, they  delighted  themselves  with  memories  of  the  time 
when  their  conquering  chivalry  was  the  terror  of  the  Gaul 
and  the  Slave,  the  Lombard  and  the  Saracen.  The  national 
life  received  a  keen  stimulus  from  the  sense  of  exaltation 
which  victory  brought,  and  from  the  intercourse  with 
countries  where  the  old  civilization  had  not  wholly  perished. 
It  was  this  connection  with  Italy  that  raised  the  German 
lands  out  of  barbarism,  and  did  for  them  the  work  which 
Roman  conquest  had  performed  in  Gaul,  Spain,  and  Britain. 


432 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  xxn.  From  the  Empire  flowed  the  richness  of  their  mediaeval 
life  and  literature :  it  first  awoke  in  them  a  consciousness 
of  national  existence ;  its  history  inspired  and  served  as 
material  to  their  poetry ;  to  many  ardent  patriots  the 
splendours  of  the  past  became  the  beacon  of  the  future. 
There  was  a  bright  side  even  to  that  long  political  dis- 
union, which  lasted  down  till  the  days  when  in  achieving 
their  national  unity  they  became  at  the  same  time  a  mighty 
military  power.  When  they  complained  that  they  were 
not  a  nation,  and  sighed  for  the  harmony  of  feeling  and 
singleness  of  aim  which  their  great  rival  seemed  to  display, 
the  example  of  a  wonderful  ancient  people  which  never 
achieved  political  unity  might  have  brought  them  some 
comfort.  To  the  variety  of  conditions  and  aptitudes  which 
the  existence  of  so  many  small  governments  helped  to 
produce  may  be  partly  attributed  the  breadth  of  develope- 
ment  in  German  thought  and  literature,  by  virtue  of  which, 
in  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century,  it  transcended 
the  French  hardly  less  than  the  Greek  surpassed  the 
Roman.  Paris  no  doubt  was  great,  but  a  country  may 
lose  as  well  as  gain  by  the  predominance  of  a  single  city ; 
and  Germany  had  in  those  days  no  cause  to  lament  that 
she  alone  among  modern  states  had  never  possessed  a 
capital. 

In  the  years  before  1866  when  Austria  and  Prussia  were 
disputing  the  headship  of  Germany,  the  merits  of  the  old 
Empire  were  the  subject  of  a  brisk  controversy  among 
several  German  professors  of  history.6  The  spokesmen  of 
the  Austrian  or  Roman  Catholic  party,  a  party  which  was 
then  not  less  powerful  in  some  of  the  minor  German 

•  I  have  retained  (in  substance)  this  and  the  next  following  paragraph, 
written  before  1866,  because  few  people,  outside  Germany,  realize  to-day  the 
part  which  the  old  Empire  played  in  the  political  controversies  of  Germany 
when  Austria  was  still  a  German  power. 


Austria  as 
heir  of  the 
Holy  Empire. 


SUMMARY  AND   REFLECTIONS  433 

States  than  in  Vienna,  claimed  for  the  Hapsburg  monarchy  CHAP.XXII. 
the  honour  of  being  the  legitimate  representative  of  the 
mediaeval  Empire,  and  declared  that  only  by  again  accept- 
ing Hapsburg  leadership  could  Germany  win  back  the  glory 
and  the  strength  that  once  were  hers.f  The  North  German 
liberals  ironically  applauded  the  comparison.  'Yes,'  they 
replied,  'your  Austrian  Empire,  as  it  calls  itself,  is  the 
true  daughter  of  the  old  despotism  :  not  less  tyrannical, 
not  less  aggressive,  not  less  retrograde ;  like  its  progenitor, 
the  friend  of  priests,  the  enemy  of  free  thought,  the  tram- 
pier  upon  the  national  feeling  of  the  peoples  that  obey  it. 
It  is  you  whose  selfish  and  anti-national  policy  blasts  the 
hope  of  German  unity  now,  as  Otto  and  Frederick  blasted 
it  long  ago  by  their  schemes  of  foreign  conquest.  The 
dream  of  Empire  has  been  our  bane  from  first  to  last.' 

To  an  impartial  eye,  neither  of  these  contending  schools 
seemed  entitled  to  press  history  into  the  service  of  par- 
tizan  politics.  Austria  might  indeed  in  those  days,  when 
she  was  ruling  over  a  disaffected  Venetia,  a  disaffected 
Hungary,  a  disaffected  Galicia,  seem  to  be  only  too  faith- 
fully reproducing  the  policy  of  the  Saxon  and  Swabian 
Caesars.  Yet  the  differences  were  manifest.  If  they  op- 
pressed the  Italian  cities  they  did  it  in  the  defence  of 
rights  which  the  Italians  themselves  admitted.  If  they 
lusted  after  a  dominion  over  the  races  on  their  borders, 
that  dominion  was  to  them  a  means  of  spreading  civiliza- 
tion and  religion  in  savage  countries,  not  of  pampering 
upon  their  revenues  an  alien  court  and  aristocracy.  They 
strove  to  maintain  a  strong  government  at  home,  but  they 
did  it  when  a  strong  government  was  the  first  of  political 

*  See  especially  Von  Sybel,  Die  deutsche  Nation  und  das  Kaiserreick ; 
and  the  answers  of  Ficker  and  Von  Wydenbrugk  ;  also  Hofler,  Kaiserthum 
und  Papstthum,  and  Waitz,  Deutsche  Kaiser  -von  Karl  dent  Grossen  bis 
Maximilian. 


434  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.XXII.  blessings.  They  gathered  and  maintained  vast  armies; 
but  those  armies  were  composed  of  knights  and  barons 
who  lived  for  war  alone,  not  of  peasants  torn  away  from 
useful  labour  and  condemned  to  the  cruel  task  of  perpetu- 
ating their  own  bondage  by  crushing  the  aspirations  of 
another  nationality.  If  Otto  and  Frederick  erred  in  pur- 
suing the  glittering  lure  of  universal  dominion,  they  were 
the  victims  of  a  belief  which  all  the  world  shared,  and 
they  erred  in  the  twilight  of  a  half-barbarous  age,  not  in 
the  noonday  blaze  of  modern  civilization.  The  enthusiasm 
for  mediaeval  faith  and  simplicity  which  was  so  fervid  in 
the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  has  run  its  course, 
and  is  not  likely  soon  to  revive.  He  who  reads  the  his- 
tory of  the  Middle  Ages  will  not  deny  that  its  heroes, 
even  the  grandest  of  them,  were  in  some  respects  little 
better  than  savages.  But  when  he  approaches  more  recent 
times,  and  sees  how,  during  the  last  three  hundred  years, 
kings  have  dealt  with  their  subjects  and  with  each  other, 
he  will  forget  the  ferocity  of  the  Middle  Ages,  in  disgust 
at  the  heartlessness,  the  perfidy,  the  injustice  all  the  more 
odious  because  it  sometimes  wears  the  mask  of  legality, 
which  disgraces  the  annals  of  the  military  monarchies  of 
Europe.  And  as  the  Holy  Empire  of  the  twelfth  and 
thirteenth  centuries  cannot  fairly  be  represented  as  having 
set  a  precedent  for  the  later  misdeeds  of  Austria,  so 
neither  did  its  traditions  furnish  a  sufficient  basis  for  the 
claims  she  then  made  to  the  leadership  of  the  German 
nation.  The  day  of  imperial  greatness  was  already  past 
when  Rudolf  the  first  Hapsburg  reached  the  throne  ;  while 
during  the  later  part  of  the  Austrian  period,  from  Ferdi- 
nand II  to  Francis  II,  the  Holy  Empire  was  to  Germany 
a  mere  clog  and  incumbrance,  which  the  unhappy  nation 
bore  because  she  knew  not  how  to  rid  herself  of  it. 

We  are  not  yet  far  enough  removed  from  the  Empire  to 


SUMMARY   AND   REFLECTIONS  435 

estimate  all  its  influence  on  European  progress,  just  as  he  CHAP.XXII. 
must  travel  far  from  the  foot  of  a  mountain  who  would  Bearing  of 
take  in  at  a  glance  its  peaks  and  slopes  and  buttresses,  the  EmPire 

.........  upon  the 

appreciate  the  nobility  of  its  lines,  and  perceive  its  relation  ^ogress  of 
to  the  valleys  and  ranges  that  fill  the  landscape  on  either  European 
side  of  it.  But  as  the  revival  of  the  imperial  name  under 
Charles  and  Otto  was  mainly  due  to  the  continuing  power 
of  the  Roman  Law  and  the  Roman  Church,  we  may  take 
note  of  the  relation  which  it  bore  to  these  two  great  factors 
in  modern  civilization.  From  it  came  nearly  everything 
in  the  political  and  legal  institutions  of  the  Middle  Ages 
that  was  not  feudal :  and  feudalism  itself  was  modified  by 
the  notions  which  the  Empire  embodied.  The  conception 
of  royalty  which  grew  up  in  the  thirteenth  century  and 
held  its  ground  till  recent  times,  and  in  particular  the 
singular  doctrine  of  the  '  divine  right '  of  a  sovereign,  be- 
longed originally  and  properly  to  the  Emperor,  and  was 
extended  from  his  office  to  that  of  other  monarchs.  So 
the  existence  of  the  Empire  greatly  contributed  to  the 
prevalence  of  Roman  law  as  a  practical  system  through 
Europe,  down  to  our  own  days.  For  while  in  Southern  influence 
France  and  Central  Italy,  where  the  subject  population  uP°n  modern 

.  ,  jurispru- 

greatly  outnumbered  their  conquerors,  the  old  system  dence 
might  have  in  any  case  survived,  it  may  be  conjectured 
that  in  other  parts  of  the  European  continent  there  would 
have  grown  up  (as  happened  in  England)  bodies  of  local 
customary  law  lacking  that  symmetry  and  scientific  quality 
which  characterize  the  law  of  Rome.  The  fact  that  there 
was  still  a  Roman  Emperor,  and  that  the  study  of  the 
law  promulgated  by  his  remote  predecessors  was  renewed 
under  his  auspices  in  countries  recognizing  his  supremacy, 
gave  a  life  and  reality  to  the  ancient  texts  they  could  never 
have  possessed,  but  for  the  notion  that  since  the  German 
monarch  was  the  legitimate  successor  of  Justinian,  the 


436  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.XXII.  Corpus  Juris  must  be  binding  on  all  his  subjects.  This 
strange  idea  was  received  with  a  faith  so  unhesitating  that 
even  the  aristocracy,  who  naturally  disliked  a  system  which 
the  Emperors  and  the  cities  favoured,  must  admit  its  va- 
lidity, and  by  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century  Roman 
law  prevailed  through  Germany.81  When  it  is  considered 
how  great  are  the  services  which  German  writers  have 
rendered  and  continue  to  render  to  the  study  of  scientific 
jurisprudence  this  result  will  appear  far  from  insignificant. 
But  another  of  still  wider  import  followed.  When  by  the 
Peace  of  Westphalia  a  crowd  of  petty  principalities  were 
recognized  as  practically  independent  states,  the  need  of  a 
body  of  rules  to  regulate  their  relations  and  intercourse 
became  pressing.  Such  a  code  (if  one  may  call  it  by 
that  name)  Grotius  and  his  successors  compiled  out  of 
the  principles  which  they  found  in  the  Roman  law,  then 
the  private  law  of  the  Germanic  countries,  thus  laying  the 
foundation  whereon  the  system  of  international  jurispru- 
dence has  been  built  up  during  the  last  three  centuries. 
That  system  could  hardly  have  arisen  in  any  country 
where  the  law  of  Rome  had  not  been  the  fountain  of  legal 
ideas  and  the  groundwork  of  positive  enactments.  In 
Germany,  too,  was  it  first  carried  out  in  practice,  and 
with  a  success  which  is  perhaps  the  best  title  of  the  later 
Empire  to  the  grateful  remembrance  of  mankind.  Under 
its  protecting  shade  small  princedoms  and  free  cities  lived, 
down  to  Napoleon's  day,  unmolested  beside  states  like 
Saxony  and  Bavaria ;  each  member  of  the  Germanic  body 
feeling  that  the  rights  of  the  weakest  of  his  brethren  were 
also  his  own. 

The   most   important   chapter   in    the    history   of    the 
Empire  is  that  which  describes  its  relation  to  the  Church 

s  Modified  of  course  by  the  canon  law,  and  not  superseding  the  feudal  law 
relating  to  land. 


SUMMARY   AND   REFLECTIONS  437 

and  the  Apostolic  See.     Of  the  ecclesiastical  power  it  was  CHAP.XXII. 
alternately  the  champion  and  the  enemy.     In  the  ninth  influence  of 
and  tenth  centuries  the  Emperors  extended  the  dominion  the  EmPire 

upon  the 

of  Peter's  chair:  in  the  tenth  and  eleventh  they  rescued  history  of  the 

it  from  an  abyss  of  guilt  and  shame  to  be  the  instrument   Church. 

of  their  own  downfall.     The  struggle  which  began  under 

Gregory  the  Seventh,  although  it  belonged  to  the  political 

rather  than  to  the  religious  sphere,  awoke  in  the  Teutonic 

nations  a  suspicion  of  the  papal  court,  and  a  disposition 

to  resist  its  pretensions.     That  struggle  ended,  with  the 

death   of   the   last    Hohenstaufen,  in  the   victory  of   the 

priesthood  —  a    victory    whose    abuse    by    the    arrogant 

and   rapacious   pontiffs   of  the   fourteenth   and    fifteenth 

centuries  made  it  more  ruinous  than  a  defeat.     The  anger 

which  had  long  smouldered  in  the  breasts  of  the  Northern 

peoples  burst  out  in  the  sixteenth  with  a  violence  which 

alarmed  those  whom  it  had  hitherto  supported,  and  made 

the  Emperors  once  more  the  allies  of  the  Popedom,  and 

the  partners  of  its  declining  fortunes.     But  the  nature  of 

that  alliance  and  of   the  hostility  which  had  preceded  it 

must  not  be  misunderstood.     It  is  a  natural,  but  not  the  Nature  of  the 

less  a  serious  error  to  suppose,  as  some  modern  writers  3uestlon  °* 

1  issue  between 

have  done,  that  the  pretensions  of  the  Empire  and  the  the  Emperors 
Popedom  were  mutually  exclusive;  that  each  claimed  all  and  the  Popes. 
the  rights,  spiritual  and  secular,  of  a  universal  monarch. 
So  far  was  this  from  being  the  case,  that  we  find  mediaeval 
writers  and  statesmen,  even  Emperors  and  Popes  them- 
selves, expressly  recognizing  a  divinely  appointed  duality 
of  government  —  two  potentates,  each  supreme  in  the 
sphere  of  his  own  activity,  Peter  in  things  eternal,  Caesar 
in  things  temporal.  The  relative  position  of  the  two  does 
indeed  in  course  of  time  undergo  a  signal  alteration.  In 
the  age  of  Charles,  the  barbarous  age  of  modern  Europe, 
when  men  were  and  could  not  but  be  governed  chiefly  by 


438  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xxii.  physical  force,  the  Emperor  was  practically,  if  not  theo- 
retically, the  grander  figure.  Four  centuries  later,  in  the 
era  of  Pope  Innocent  III,  when  the  power  of  ideas  had 
grown  stronger  in  the  world,  and  was  able  to  resist,  or  to 
bend  to  its  service,  the  arms  and  the  wealth  of  men,  we 
see  the  balance  inclined  the  other  way.  Spiritual  authority 
is  conceived  of  as  being  of  a  nature  so  high  and  holy  that 
it  is  entitled  to  inspire  and  guide  the  civil  administration. 
But  there  was  not  yet  a  purpose  to  supplant  that  adminis- 
tration or  to  degrade  its  head.  The  great  struggle  of  the 
eleventh  and  two  following  centuries  does  not  aim  at  the 
annihilation  of  one  or  other  power,  but  turns  upon 
the  character  of  their  connection.  Hildebrand,  the  typical 
representative  of  the  Popedom,  requires  the  obedience  of 
the  Emperor  on  the  ground  of  his  own  personal  responsi- 
bility for  the  souls  of  their  common  subjects:  he  demands, 
not  that  the  functions  of  temporal  government  shall  be 
directly  committed  to  himself,  but  that  they  shall  be  exer- 
cised in  conformity  with  the  will  of  God,  whereof  he  is 
the  exponent.  The  imperialist  party,  since  they  could  not 
deny  the  spiritual  supremacy  of  the  Pope,  nor  the  tran- 
scendent importance  of  eternal  salvation,  could  do  no  more 
than  protest  that  the  Emperor,  being  also  divinely  ap- 
pointed, was  directly  answerable  to  God,  and  remind  the 
Pope  that  his  kingdom  was  not  of  this  world.  There  was 
in  truth  no  way  out  of  the  difficulty,  for  it  was  caused 
by  the  attempt  to  sever  things  which,  distinguishable  in 
thought,  hardly  admit  of  severance  in  practice,  life  in  the 
soul  and  life  in  the  world,  life  for  the  future  and  life  in 
the  present.  Then  the  Papacy,  embittered  by  strife  and 
intoxicated  by  victory,  began  to  advance  pretensions  so 
extravagant  as  to  provoke  reaction.  Frederick  II  claimed 
ecclesiastical  authority  :  Lewis  IV  deposed  a  reigning  Pope 
and  crowned  a  friar  as  his  successor.  Each  power  had 


SUMMARY  AND   REFLECTIONS  439 

grievously  wounded  the  other;  the  decline  of  both  had  CHAP.XXII. 
begun,  for  each  was  losing  its  hold  upon  opinion.  Yet 
for  a  while  neither  combatant  had  pushed  his  theory  to 
extremities,  since  he  felt  that  his  adversary's  title  rested 
on  the  same  foundations  as  his  own.  The  strife  which 
had  been  keenest  at  the  time  when  the  world  believed 
fervently  in  both  powers,  suddenly  died  away;  and  an 
alliance  came  when  faith  had  forsaken  the  one  and  grown 
cold  towards  the  other.  From  the  Reformation  onwards 
Empire  and  Popedom  fought  no  longer  against  one  another 
for  supremacy,  but  side  by  side  for  existence. 

Nor  was  that  which  may  be  called  the  inner  life  of  the  Ennobling 
Empire  less  momentous  in  its  influence  upon  the  minds   mfiuence  °f 

the  conception 

of  men  than  were  its  outward  dealings  with  the  Roman  Oj  the  world 
Church  upon  the  various  phases  of  her  fortunes.  In  the  Empire. 
Middle  Ages,  men  conceived  of  the  communion  of  the  saints 
as  the  formal  unity  of  an  organized  body  of  worshippers, 
and  found  the  concrete  realization  of  that  conception  in 
their  universal  religious  state,  which  was  in  one  aspect 
the  Church,  in  another,  the  Empire.  Into  the  meaning 
and  worth  of  the  conception,  into  the  nature  of  the  con- 
nection which  subsists  or  ought  to  subsist  between  the 
Church  and  the  State,  this  is  not  the  place  to  inquire. 
That  the  form  which  that  connection  took  in  the  Middle 
Ages  was  always  imperfect  and  became  eventually  rigid 
and  unprogressive  was  sufficiently  proved  by  the  event. 
But  by  it  the  European  peoples  were  saved  from  the  isola- 
tion, and  narrowness,  and  jealous  exclusiveness  which  had 
checked  the  growth  of  the  earlier  civilizations  of  the 
world,  and  which  we  see  now  lying  like  a  weight  upon 
the  kingdoms  of  the  East :  by  it  they  were  brought  into 
that  mutual  knowledge  and  co-operation  which  is  the 
condition  if  it  be  not  the  source  of  all  true  culture  and 
progress.  For  as  by  the  Roman  Empire  of  old  the 


440  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.XXII.  nations  were  first  forced  to  own  a  common  sway,  so  by 
the  Empire  of  the  Middle  Ages  was  preserved  the  feel- 
ing of  a  brotherhood  of  mankind,  a  commonwealth  of  the 
whole  world,  whose  sublime  unity  transcended  every  minor 
distinction. 

Principles  As  despotic  monarchs  claiming  the  world  for  their  realm, 

adverse  to  the  ^Q  Teutonic  Emperors  strove  from  the  first  against  three 
principles,  over  all  of  which  their  forerunners  of  the  elder 
Rome  had  triumphed  —  those  of  Nationality,  Aristocracy, 
and  Popular  Freedom.  Their  early  struggles  were  against 
the  first  of  these  principles,  and  ended  with  its  victory  in 
the  emancipation,  one  after  another,  of  France,  Poland, 
Hungary,  Denmark,  Burgundy,  and  Italy.  The  second, 
in  the  form  of  feudalism,  menaced  even  when  seeming  to 
exalt  and  obey  them,  and  succeeded,  during  and  after  the 
Great  Interregnum,  in  destroying  their  effective  strength 
in  Germany.  Aggression  and  inheritance  turned  the  nu- 
merous independent  principalities  thus  formed  out  of  the 
greater  fiefs,  into  a  few  military  monarchies,  resting  neither 
on  reciprocal  loyalty,  like  feudal  kingdoms,  nor  on  religious 
duty  and  tradition,  like  the  Empire,  but  on  material  force, 
more  or  less  disguised  by  legal  forms.  That  the  hostility 
to  the  Empire  of  the  impulse  towards  free  self-government 
was  accidental  rather  than  necessary  is  seen  by  this,  that 
the  very  same  monarchs  who  sought  to  crush  the  Lombard 
and  Tuscan  cities  favoured  the  growth  of  the  free  towns 
of  Germany  and  sometimes  favoured  the  free  rural  commu- 
nities of  what  afterwards  became  Switzerland.  The  theo- 
retical autocracy  of  Caesar  could  in  practice  reconcile  itself 
with  civic  or  cantonal  autonomy  just  as  easily  as  it  did  with 
the  rights  of  the  feudal  vassal  in  the  days  when  the  vassal 
was  content  to  keep  his  place.  Nevertheless  the  principles 
whereon  the  Holy  Empire  rested,  were  in  so  far  incompat- 
ible with  freedom  of  judgement,  of  speech,  and  of  action, 


SUMMARY   AND    REFLECTIONS  441 

that  when  the  German  and  Swiss  Reformers  asserted  the  CHAP.  xxn. 

rights  of  the  individual  in  the  sphere   of  religion,  they 

weakened  the  Empire  by  denying  the  necessity  of  external 

unity  in  matters  spiritual.    The  extension  of  such  doctrines 

to  the  secular  world  would  have  in   like  manner  struck 

at  the  doctrine  of  imperial  absolutism  had  it  not  found  a 

nearer  and  deadlier  foe  in  the  actual  tyranny  of  the  princes. 

It  is  more  than  a  coincidence,  that  as  the  proclamation  of 

the  liberty  of  thought  had  shaken,  so  the  proclamation  of 

liberty  of  action  made  by  the  revolutionary  movement, 

whose  beginning  the  world  saw  and  only  half  understood 

in  1789,  should  have  indirectly  become  the  cause  which 

overthrew  the  Holy  Empire. 

Its  fall  in  the  midst  of  the  great  convulsion  that  changed  Change 
the  face  of  Europe  marks  an  era  in  history,  an  era  whose  mar^ed  6?  *'* 
character  the  events  of  the  sixty  years  that  followed  went 
on  unfolding  :  an  era  of  the  destruction  of  old  forms  and 
systems  and  the  building  up  of  new.  The  latest  instances 
are  the  most  memorable.  Under  our  eyes,  the  work  which 
Theodorich  and  Lewis  the  Second,  Guido  and  Ardoin  and 
the  second  Frederick,  essayed  in  vain,  was  achieved  by  the 
steadfast  will  of  the  Italian  people.  The  fairest  province 
of  the  Empire,  for  which  Franconian  and  Swabian  battled 
so  long,  became  at  last  a  single  monarchy  under  the  Bur- 
gundian  count,  whom  Sigismund  created  imperial  vicar  in 
Italy,  and  who,  now  that  he  holds  the  ancient  capital,  may 
call  himself  '  king  of  the  Romans  '  more  truly  than  did 
ever  Greek  or  Frank  or  Saxon  or  Austrian  since  Constan- 
tine  forsook  the  Tiber  for  the  Bosphorus.  No  longer  the 
prey  of  the  stranger,  Italy  could  forget  the  past,  and  sym- 
pathize, as  indeed,  since  the  fortunate  alliance  of  1866,  she 
began  to  sympathize,  with  the  efforts  after  national  unity 
of  her  ancient  enemy  —  efforts  confronted  by  so  many 
obstacles  that  for  many  years  they  seemed  all  but  hope- 


442  THE    HOLY   ROMAN    EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xxii.  less.  On  the  new  shapes  that  may  emerge  before  the 
reconstruction  of  Europe  is  complete  it  would  be  idle  to 
speculate.  Yet  one  prediction  may  be  ventured.  No 
universal  monarchy  is  likely  to  arise.  More  frequent 
intercourse,  more  rapid  communications,  the  expansion 
of  trade  and  the  progress  of  thought,  though  they  have 
effaced  some  prejudices  and  given  nations  a  fuller  know- 
ledge of  one  another,  have  not  lessened  the  strength  of 
national  feeling.  The  racial  or  commercial  antagonisms 
of  democracies  are  as  fertile  in  menaces  to  peace  as  were 
ever  the  dynastic  interests  of  princes.  No  one  who  reads 
the  history  of  the  last  three  hundred  years,  no  one,  above 
all,  who  studies  attentively  the  career  of  Napoleon,  can 
believe  it  possible  for  any  state,  however  great  her  energy 
and  material  resources,  to  repeat  in  modern  Europe  the 
Relations  of  part  of  ancient  Rome  :  to  gather  into  one  vast  political 
f' '.fmfire  body  races  whose  national  individuality  has  grown  more 
tionaiitiesof  and  more  marked  in  each  successive  age.  Nevertheless, 
Europe.  ft  js  jn  great  measure  due  to  Rome  and  to  the  Roman 
Empire  of  the  Middle  Ages  that  the  bonds  of  national 
union  are  on  the  whole  both  stronger  and  nobler  than 
they  were  ever  before.  The  greatest  historian  of  republi- 
can Rome,  after  summing  up  the  results  to  the  world  of 
his  hero's  career,  closes  his  treatise  with  these  words  : 
'There  was  in  the  world  as  Caesar  found  it  the  rich  and 
noble  heritage  of  past  centuries,  and  an  endless  abundance 
of  splendour  and  glory,  but  little  soul,  still  less  taste,  and, 
least  of  all,  joy  in  and  through  life.  Truly  it  was  an  old 
world,  and  even  the  patriotic  genius  of  Caesar  could  not 
make  it  young  again.  The  blush  of  dawn  returns  not 
until  the  night  has  fully  descended.  Yet  with  him  there 
came  to  the  much-tormented  races  of  the  Mediterranean 
a  tranquil  evening  after  a  sultry  day :  and  when,  after 
long  historical  night,  the  new  day  broke  once  more  upon 


SUMMARY   AND   REFLECTIONS  443 

the  peoples,  and  fresh  nations  in  free  self -guided  move-  CHAP.  XXIL 
ment  began  their  course  towards  new  and  higher  aims, 
many  were  found  among  them  in  whom  the  seed  of  Caesar 
had  sprung  up,  many  who  owed  him,  and  who  owe  him 
still,  their  national  individuality.'  h  If  this  be  the  glory  of 
Julius,  the  first  great  founder  of  the  Empire,  so  is  it  also 
the  glory  of  Charles,  the  second  founder,  and  of  more 
than  one  amongst  his  Teutonic  successors.  The  work 
of  the  mediaeval  Empire  was  self-destructive ;  and  it  fos- 
tered, while  seeming  to  oppose,  the  nationalities  that  were 
destined  to  replace  it.  It  tamed  the  barbarous  races  of 
the  North,  and  forced  them  within  the  pale  of  civilization. 
It  preserved  the  memory  of  ancient  order  and  culture. 
In  times  of  violence  and  oppression,  it  set  before  its  sub- 
jects the  duty  of  rational  obedience  to  an  authority  whose 
watchwords  were  peace  and  religion.  It  kept  alive,  in  the 
face  of  national  prejudices,  the  notion  of  a  great  European 
commonwealth.  And  by  doing  all  this,  it  was  in  effect 
abolishing  the  need  for  an  all-absorbing  autocratic  power 
like  itself :  it  was  making  men  capable  of  using  national 
independence  aright :  it  was  enabling  them  to  rise  to  the 
conception  of  a  spontaneous  activity,  and  of  a  freedom 
which  is  above  law  but  not  against  it,  to  which  national 
independence  itself,  if  it  is  to  be  a  blessing,  ought  to  be 
a  means. 

In  the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth  century  the  thoughts 
and  hopes  of  the  purest  and  most  earnest  minds  were 
directed  to  the  ideal  of  a  Universal  Christian  State,  by 
which  universal  peace  should  be  secured ;  a  lofty  ideal, 
and  one  never  to  be  forgotten  by  mankind.  In  the 
centuries  that  followed,  other  aims,  other  ideals,  inspired 
the  men  who  led  the  movement  of  the  world,  and  five 
hundred  years  after  Dante's  time  noble  lives  were  being 

h  Mommsen,  Romische  Geschichte,  Hi,  sub  fin. 


444 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.XXII.  consecrated  to  the  deliverance  of  every  people  from  alien 
rule,  and  the  establishment  of  each  as  a  free  self-govern- 
ing community.  This  too  was  a  high  ideal,  and  a  precious 
one,  for  it  meant  the  extinction  of  many  tyrannies  and 
the  drying  up  of  many  springs  of  race  hatred.  No  wonder 
that  the  principle  of  nationalities  was  then  advocated  with 
honest  devotion  as  the  perfect  form  of  political  develope- 
ment.  Yet  finality  cannot  be  claimed  for  this  ideal,  any 
more  than  for  those  that  went  before.  If  all  other  history 
did  not  bid  us  beware  the  habit  of  taking  the  problems  and 
the  conditions  of  our  own  age  for  those  of  all  time,  the 
warning  which  the  history  of  the  Empire  gives  might  alone 
be  warning  enough.  From  the  days  of  Augustus  down  to 
those  of  Charles  the  Fifth  the  whole  civilized  world  be- 
lieved in  its  existence  as  a  part  of  the  eternal  fitness  of 
things,  and  Christian  theologians  were  not  behind  heathen 
poets  in  declaring  that  when  it  perished  the  world  would 
perish  with  it.  Yet  the  Empire  vanished,  and  the  world 
remained,  and  hardly  noted  the  change. 

The  highest  themes  which  can  occupy  the  mind  are,  as 
Dante  has  said,  those  which  most  transcend  the  resources 
of  human  language.  So  in  parting  from  a  great  subject 
the  feeling  arises  that  words  fail  to  convey  the  ideas  it 
suggests,  and  that  however  much  may  have  been  said, 
much  must  remain  unsaid,  because  incapable  of  expression. 
Here  one  is  baffled  partly  by  the  magnitude  of  the  subject, 
for  it  is  a  vast  one,  which  needs  to  be  studied  as  a  whole, 
as  an  institution  which  through  forty  generations  of  men 
preserves  its  name  and  its  claims  while  its  relations  to  the 
world  around  it  are  constantly  changing.  But  another 
difficulty  lies  still  deeper.  It  lies  in  grasping  the  essence 
and  spirit  of  the  Holy  Empire  as  it  appeared  to  the  saints 
and  poets  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  in  realizing  all  that  it 
meant  to  them.  Formulas  help  us  little :  it  is  rather 


Difficulties 
arising  from 
the  nature  of 
the  subject. 


SUMMARY   AND   REFLECTIONS  445 

through  imagination  than  by  logic  or  analysis  that  we  may  CHAP.  xxn. 
succeed  in  apprehending  the  true  significance  of  this 
strange  creation  of  reverent  tradition  and  mystical  faith 
which  filled  the  sky  and  scarcely  touched  the  earth.  A 
like  difficulty  meets  us  when  we  think  of  that  other  still 
more  wonderful  child  of  Rome  and  of  tradition,  the  Papacy. 
The  Protestants  of  the  seventeenth  century,  who  saw  in  it 
nothing  but  a  gigantic  upas-tree  of  fraud  and  superstition, 
planted  and  reared  by  the  enemy  of  mankind,  were  hardly 
further  from  entering  into  the  mystery  of  its  being  than 
the  complacent  philosophers  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
who  explained  in  neat  phrases  the  process  of  its  growth, 
analyzed  it  as  a  clever  piece  of  mechanism,  enumerating 
and  measuring  the  interests  it  appealed  to.  As  there  is  a 
sense  in  which  the  Papacy  is  above  explanation,  because  it 
appeals  to  emotion,  not  to  reason,  to  faith,  and  not  to  sight, 
so  of  the  Empire  also  may  this  be  said,  not  that  it  is  im- 
possible to  discover  the  beliefs  which  created  and  sustained 
it,  but  that  the  power  and  fascination  of  those  beliefs  can- 
not be  adequately  apprehended  by  men  whose  minds  have 
been  differently  trained,  and  whose  imaginations  are  fired 
by  different  ideals.  Something  we  should  know  of  it  if  we 
knew  what  were  the  thoughts  of  Julius  Caesar  when  he 
laid  the  foundations  on  which  Augustus  built ;  of  Charles 
the  Great,  when  he  reared  anew  the  majestic  pile ;  of 
Henry  the  Third,  when  he  consecrated  the  strength  of  his 
crown  to  the  purification  of  the  Church  ;  of  Frederick  'the 
Wonder  of  the  World,'  when  he  strove  to  avert  the  surely 
coming  ruin.  Something  more  succeeding  generations 
will  know,  who  may  judge  the  Middle  Ages  more  fairly 
than  we,  still  influenced  by  a  reaction  against  all  that  is 
mediaeval,  can  hope  to  do,  and  to  whom  it  will  be  given  to 
see  and  understand  new  forms  of  political  life,  whose 
nature  we  cannot  conjecture.  Seeing  more  than  we  do, 


446  THE  HOLY  ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  xxii.  they  will  also  see  some  things  less  distinctly.  The  Empire 
which  to  us  still  looms  largely  on  the  horizon  of  the  past, 
will  to  them  sink  lower  and  lower  as  they  journey  onwards 
into  the  future.  But  its  importance  in  universal  history  it 
can  never  lose.  For  into  it  all  the  life  of  the  ancient 
world  was  gathered :  out  of  it  all  the  life  of  the  modern 
world  arose. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

THE    PROGRESS    OF    GERMANY    TOWARDS    NATIONAL    UNITY 

IN  A.D.  1806  the  Holy  Empire  died  and  was  buried  and  CHAF. 
to  all  appearance  soon  forgotten.  No  outworn  shape  of  XXIII< 
the  past  could  have  seemed  less  likely  to  be  ever  recalled 
to  life,  for  the  forces  which  had  so  long  assailed  and  had 
at  last  destroyed  it  were  stronger  than  ever,  and  threatened 
with  extinction  even  that  feeble  shadow  which,  under  the 
name  of  the  Germanic  Confederation,  affected  in  some 
fashion  to  represent  the  unity  of  the  German  nation.  Fifty 
years  passed  away ;  new  questions  arose  ;  Europe  ranged 
itself  into  new  parties  ;  men's  minds  began  to  be  swayed 
by  new  feelings.  Time  drove  fast  onwards,  and  the  Holy 
Roman  Empire  seemed  left  so  far  behind  among  the  mists 
of  the  past,  that  it  was  hard  to  believe  that  living  men  had 
seen  it  and  borne  part  in  its  government.  Then  suddenly 
there  arises  from  these  cold  ashes  a  new,  vigorous,  self-con- 
fident German  Empire,  a  State  which,  although  most  dif- 
ferent, as  well  in  its  inner  character  as  in  its  form  and 
legal  aspect,  from  its  venerable  predecessor,  is  neverthe- 
less in  a  real  sense  that  predecessor's  representative.  An 
account  of  this  new  creation  of  our  own  days,  perhaps  the 
most  striking  and  fertile  epoch  in  European  annals,  is 
therefore  a  fitting,  if  not  a  necessary,  pendant  to  the  his- 
tory of  the  elder  Empire  ;  it  is,  in  fact,  the  latest  act  of 
a  long  drama,  which  gives  a  new  and  more  cheerful  meaning 
to  all  that  has  gone  before.  For  not  only  does  the  new 
Empire  hold  that  central  place  among  Continental  States 

447 


448  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

which  the  old  Empire  once  filled  :  it  is,  in  a  moral  and 
intellectual  sense,  the  offspring  of  the  old  Empire,  and, 
but  for  the  pre-existence  of  the  other,  could  never  have 
itself  come  into  being. 

It  has  been  shewn  in  the  earlier  chapters  of  this  treatise, 
how  from  the  days  of  the  Emperor  Henry  III,  when  the 
Holy  Empire  reached  the  maximum  of  its  power,  every 
succeeding  change  tended  to  sap  its  vitality,  loosen  its 
cohesion,  diminish  its  material  resources,  weaken  its  hold 
on  the  love  and  faith  of  its  subjects.  The  first  crisis  was 
marked  by  the  death  of  Frederick  II,  when  Italy  was  lost 
beyond  hope  of  recovery ;  the  second  by  the  Reforma- 
tion, and  particularly  by  the  Treaty  of  A.D.  1555  ;  the  third 
by  the  Peace  of  Westphalia,  when  Germany  was  legally 
reconstituted  as  a  sort  of  federation  of  mutually  suspicious 
and  unfriendly  states  ;  the  fourth,  one  may  perhaps  say, 
by  the  Seven  Years'  War,  when  one  vigorous  member  suc- 
cessfully resisted  the  whole  force  of  Austria  and  some 
minor  German  powers,  backed  by  the  armies  of  France 
and  Russia.  It  is  easy  for  us  now  to  see,  that  as  after  the 
first  of  these  crises  the  Empire  had  no  longer  any  chance 
of  making  good  its  claim  to  be  a  world-monarchy,  co-exten- 
sive with  Christianity,  so  after  the  second  its  prospects  as 
a  national  State,  claiming  to  unite  all  Germany  under  a 
single  effective  administration,  were  practically  hopeless. 
The  Germans,  however,  as  was  natural,  did  not  see  this 
until  in  1648  the  admission  of  the  substantial  independence 
of  the  princes  had  turned  the  imperial  dignity  into  a  mask 
under  which  the  harsh  features  of  the  Hapsburg  sovereigns 
tried  in  vain  to  conceal  themselves.  Over  the  sentiment 
of  the  people  its  name  still  retained  some  power,  for  it  was 
associated  with  the  glories  of  their  earlier  history,  with 
heroic  memories  enshrined  in  song,  with  claims  of  world- 
supremacy  which  they  could  not  bring  themselves  to  forget. 


THE   UNIFICATION   OF   GERMANY  449 

But  it  was  no  longer  a  rallying-point  for  national  feeling,  CHAP. 
a  centre  to  which  the  country  looked  for  inspiration  and  XXIII« 
guidance.  There  was  indeed  but  little  national  feeling  in 
the  Germany  of  that  age,  little  political  hope  or  ardour, 
little  interest  in  the  welfare  of  the  State  as  a  whole,  for 
there  was  nothing  to  stir  men's  feelings  as  Germans  or 
citizens,  no  struggles  for  great  common  objects  against 
foreign  powers,  no  play  of  political  life  at  home,  no  assem- 
blies, no  free  press,  no  local  self-government.  But,  even  if 
a  national  feeling  had  been  awake,  it  would  hardly  have 
attached  itself  to  the  old  Empire,  which  was  not  only  cum- 
brous and  antiquated,  but  seemed  strange  and  in  a  way 
un-German,  just  because  it  was  more  than  German ;  and 
which  found  the  support  of  Rome  now  almost  as  injurious 
as  her  enmity  had  been  in  times  gone  by,  since  the  friendship 
of  Rome  meant  the  hatred  and  jealousy  of  the  Protestants. 
It  can  hardly  be  said  that  the  Empire  was  so  utterly  dead 
but  that  it  might  have  been  vivified  by  a  really  great  man, 
just  as  such  an  one  might  perhaps  make  the  English  or 
the  Spanish  monarchy  a  power  even  to-day.  But  had 
this  come  to  pass,  it  would  have  been  because  the  genius 
gave  life  to  the  office,  not,  as  of  old,  because  the  office 
inspired  its  holder.  And  it  was  not  so  to  be.  The  im- 
perial throne  did  not  find  a  man  of  the  first  order  to  fill  it ; 
and  continued  to  stand  rather  because  nobody  appeared  to 
overthrow  it,  than  because  any  good  reason  remained  for 
it  in  the  changed  order  of  things. 

The  denationalization  of  Germany  had  indeed  gone  be- 
yond politics.  As  after  the  establishment  of  foreign  rule 
in  Italy,  Italian  art  and  letters  had  become  frigid  and 
affected,  so  with  that  extinction  of  any  free  or  united  pub- 
lic life  in  Germany  which  followed  the  Thirty  Years'  War, 
the  blossoms  of  literature  which  had  put  themselves  forth 
in  the  age  of  the  Reformation  were  nipped  and  withered 


450 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


away.  In  Lewis  the  Fourteenth's  time,  French  influence 
became  dominant  in  Germany,  no  less  in  poetry  and  criti- 
cism, than  in  matters  of  dress,  furniture,  and  etiquette ; 
and  the  ambition  of  German  men  of  letters  was  to  put  off 
what  they  were  hardly  ashamed  to  call  their  native  bar- 
barism, and  imitate  the  sparkling  elegance  of  their  West- 
ern neighbours  and  enemies.  French  was  the  fashionable 
language ;  French  ideas  and  modes  of  thought  were  no 
less  supreme  than  Greek  ideas  had  been  at  Rome  in  the 
last  half  century  of  the  Republic  ;  French  men  of  letters 
and  science  were  imported,  as  apostles  of  enlightenment, 
by  the  best  of  the  German  princes,  just  as  Germans  have 
in  later  times  been  drawn  into  Russia  by  the  Tsars. 

Just  when  this  reign  of  foreign  taste  was  most  undis- 
puted, just  when  the  political  life  and  national  sentiment 
of  Germany  seemed  bound  in  a  frozen  sleep,  a  change 
began ;  and  it  began,  like  many  other  great  changes,  from 
an  unpromising  quarter  and  in  an  unconscious  way. 

From  the  time  of  the  Swabian  Emperors,  the  Margrave 
of  Brandenburg  was  one  of  the  most  considerable  princes  of 
the  Empire,  and  before  the  reign  of  Rudolf  the  First  he 
had  become  definitely  recognized  as  an  Elector  with  the 
office  of  Archchamberlain.  His  dominions  consisted  of 
the  Mark  proper,  or  Old  Mark,  to  which  were  added  the 
New  and  the  Middle  Mark,  a  flat,  sandy  territory  of  heaths 
and  woods  lying  along  the  Elbe  and  the  Havel,  which  had 
been  conquered  from  the  Wends  in  the  days  of  Henry  the 
Fowler,  and  gradually  filled  by  a  Teutonic  population, 
together  with  a  more  or  less  vague  authority,  or  claim  of 
authority,  over  the  Slavonic  tribes  to  the  north  and  east. 
In  A.D.  1411  this  territory  was  delivered  over  to  Frederick, 
sixth  Burggrave  of  Nurnberg,a  by  the  Emperor  Sigismund, 

*  Burggrave  was  the  title  of  the  Count,  representing  the  Emperor,  who 
held  the  castle  which  guarded  the  city. 


THE  UNIFICATION   OF   GERMANY  451 

whom  he  had  served  faithfully,  and  to  whom  he  had  CHAP. 
advanced  moneys,  which  the  latter  in  this  way  repaid,  XXIII> 
giving  Brandenburg  as  a  sort  of  pledge  which  was  not 
likely  to  be  redeemed  :b  and  in  1415  Sigismund  formally 
conferred  the  Mark  and  the  electoral  dignity  upon  Fred- 
erick and  his  heirs,  still,  however,  reserving  (but  on  the 
occasion  of  the  formal  investiture  of  1417  omitting  this 
reservation)  the  right  of  redeeming  his  grant  by  the  pay- 
ment of  400,000  Hungarian  gold  gulden,  and  retaining  to 
himself  and  his  male  heirs  the  reversion  in  the  Electorate, 
expectant  on  the  extinction  of  Frederick's  line,  an  event 
which  has  not  yet  happened.  This  Burggrave  Frederick 
was  the  lineal  descendant  of  a  certain  Conrad  of  Hohen- 
zollern  (first  Burggrave  in  the  days  of  Frederick  Bar- 
barossa),  scion  of  an  old  Swabian  family  whose  ancestral 
castle  stands  in  the  high  limestone  plateau  of  the  Rauhe 
Alp,  not  very  far  from  Hohenstaufen  and  from  Altorf, 
the  original  seat  of  the  Welfs ;  and  this  Conrad  is  the 
twenty-fifth  lineal  ancestor  of  the  present  Emperor  William 
the  Second.  From  the  time  of  Elector  Frederick  the 
house  of  Hohenzollern  held  Brandenburg,  adding  to  it  by 
slow  degrees  various  other  scattered  territories,  with 
claims,  which  for  a  time  could  not  be  made  good,  to  other 
territories,  and  in  particular  acquiring,  in  1605  and  1618, 
the  district  known  as  East  Prussia,  lying  along  the  Baltic 
beyond  the  Vistula,  as  the  heritage  of  Albert  the  last 
Grandmaster  of  the  Teutonic  knights.0  The  Hohen- 


b  Much  as  the  king  of  Denmark  and  Norway  gave  the  Orkney  and  Shet- 
land isles  to  the  king  of  Scotland  (A.D.  1468)  as  a  pledge  for  the  payment 
of  the  dowry  of  his  daughter,  a  payment  which  has  not  yet  been  made. 

c  The  Duchy  of  East  Prussia  was  established  by  the  Treaty  of  Krakow  in 
1525,  under  Polish  suzerainty.  The  electors  of  Brandenburg,  from  the  time 
of  Joachim  II  onwards,  obtained  from  Poland  the  co-investiture  of  it,  but  did 
not  get  the  actual  government  into  their  hands  till  1605,  nor  the  full  legal 


452 


THE    HOLY    ROMAN    EMPIRE 


CHAP. 
XXIII. 


Erection  of 
the  kingdom 
of  Prussia. 


zollerns  embraced  Protestantism,  and  after  having  played 
(in  the  person  of  the  Elector  George  William)  a  rather  con- 
temptible part  in  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  produced  a  really 
distinguished  prince  in  Frederick  the  Great  Elector,  who 
reigned  in  the  latter  half  of  the  seventeenth  century.  He 
freed  East  Prussia  from  the  supremacy  of  Poland,  consoli- 
dated his  straggling  dominions  into  a  well-ordered  state, 
and  gave  to  his  subjects,  by  the  lustre  of  his  military  suc- 
cesses, a  sort  of  incipient  consciousness  of  national 
existence. 

In  1700  his  son  Frederick,  having  secured  or  purchased 
the  approval  of  the  Emperor  Leopold,  but  not  without  a 
furious  protest  from  Pope  Clement  XI,  whose  prophetic 
spirit  dreaded  and  denounced  in  Hildebrandine  fashion  the 
admission  of  a  heretic  to  the  most  sacred  of  secular  offices, 
called  himself  king  of  Prussia,  taking  his  title  from  the 
above-named  Duchy  of  East  Prussia,  and  crowning  him- 
self at  Konigsberg,  its  ancient  capital,  on  January  18,  1701. 
This  region  was  not  a  part  of  the  Holy  Empire,  and  its 
original  inhabitants,  the  Old  Prussians,*1  were  not  Germans 
at  all,  but  a  Lithuanian  people,  who  had  remained  pagans 
and  barbarians  till  they  were  half  conquered,  half  exter- 
minated, by  the  Teutonic  knights  in  the  thirteenth  and 
fourteenth  centuries,  and  their  country  Germanized  by  a 
constant  immigration  from  the  West.  It  is  a  curious  freak 
of  history,  not  unlike  that  which  has  extended  the  British 
name  to  the  Teutonic  and  Gaelic  inhabitants  of  the  largest 
European  island,  that  has  transferred  the  name  of  this 
declining  race  to  the  greatest  of  modern  German  states. 

This  assumption  of  royalty,  the  work  of  a  prince  who 
contributed  nothing  else  to  the  greatness  of  his  house, 

dominion  till  1618;  and  the  supremacy  of  Poland  remained  until  released  at 
the  Peace  of  Wehlau  in  1657. 

d  So  called  from  their  dwelling  next  to  Russia  —  po  Russia, 


THE   UNIFICATION   OF  GERMANY  453 

was  a  matter  of  far  greater  consequence  than  might  -have  CHAP. 
at  first  appeared.  At  that  time  no  other  member  of  the  XXIIL 
Empire  (except  the  Emperor  himself,  who  was  king  of 
Bohemia,  and  the  Elector  of  Saxony,  who  had  in  1697 
been  chosen  king  of  Poland)  wore  a  crown,  and  the  new 
dignity  was  soon  felt  to  have  raised  its  owner  into  a  higher 
European  position,  for  it  made  him  the  fellow  of  the  sover- 
eigns of  France,  England,  Denmark,  Sweden,  and  brought 
him  into  what  soon  became  a  rivalry  with  his  titular  superior 
the  Emperor.  Had  Austria  been  wise,  she  would  have 
rejected  a  bribe  far  larger  than  that  by  which  her  compli- 
ance was  purchased,  would  even  have  dispensed  with  the 
goodwill  of  Brandenburg  in  the  struggle  of  the  Spanish 
Succession,  rather  than  have  yielded  to  this  young  antago- 
nist a  moral  advantage  of  such  moment.  For  the  time, 
however,  little  change  seemed  to  have  been  made.  Fred- 
erick the  First  was  feeble  and  peaceful :  the  eccentric 
Frederick  William  I,  who  followed  him,  had  a  dutiful  rev- 
erence for  his  Emperor,  and  prized  his  regiment  of  giants 
too  highly  to  care  to  risk  them  in  war.  He  was,  moreover, 
thrifty  to  the  verge  of  parsimony ;  and  his  energy,  which 
was  considerable,  found  scope  for  its  exercise  in  a  careful 
oversight  of  the  revenue  and  civil  service  of  the  country 
which  largely  contributed  to  the  successes  of  his  son. 

The  greatness  of  the  Prussian  monarchy  begins  with  Frederick 

Frederick  II,  the  most  remarkable  man  who  had  succeeded  the  Great< 

1740-178^ 

to  a  throne  since  Charles  V.  The  military  talents  by 
which  Europe  knows  him  best,  are  a  less  worthy  title  to 
the  admiration  of  posterity,  than  the  ardour  he  shewed  for 
good  administration,  for  the  prosperity  and  happiness  of 
his  people.  Along  with  the  instinctive  desire  of  a  power- 
ful and  active  mind  to  have  everything  done  in  the  best 
way,  he  had  a  complete  superiority  to  prejudice  and  tradi- 
tion, a  love  of  justice,  and  a  genuine  sympathy,  not  indeed 


454  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  for  political  liberty,  but  for  cultivation  and  enlightenment. 

xxin.  jt  wag  at  Bottom  this,  fully  as  much  as  the  glories  of  his 
campaigns,  that  made  him,  in  spite  of  his  cold  heart  and 
scornful  manner,  a  favourite  with  his  own  people  and  an 
object  of  curiosity,  even  of  pride,  throughout  Germany. 
Upon  that  country  the  moral  effect  of  his  reign  was  great. 
It  stirred  the  national  spirit  to  see  a  German  prince  defend 
his  naturally  weak  kingdom  against  the  allied  might  of 
Austria,  France,  and  Russia,  and  come  out  of  the  terrible 
struggle  with  undaunted  confidence  and  undiminished  ter- 
ritories. While  the  other  states  of  the  Empire  were  languish- 
ing under  an  old  fashioned  and  wasteful  misgovernment, 
Prussia  set  the  example  of  an  administration  which,  while 
rigidly  frugal,  strove  to  develope  the  resources  of  the  coun- 
try, of  a  highly-disciplined  army,  of  a  codified  law,  of  a  re- 
formed system  of  procedure,  of  a  capital  to  which  men  of 
literary  and  scientific  eminence  were  gathered  from  all 
quarters.  While  bigotry  and  feudalism  reigned  on  the 
Danube,  Frederick  made  Berlin  the  centre  of  light  for 
North  Germany ;  and  in  this  way  effected  as  much  for  his 
kingdom  as  he  had  clone  by  the  seizure  of  wealthy  Silesia, 
giving  it  a  representative  position,  a  claim  on  German 
interest  and  sympathy  which  there  had  been  little  in  its 
earlier  history,  or  in  that  of  his  own  house,  to  awaken. 
But  in  all  this  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  attribute  to  the 
great  king  a  conception  of  what  it  became  afterwards  the 
fashion  to  call  '  Prussia's  German  Mission,'  the  conscious 
foresight  of  a  German  patriot  anxious  to  pave  the  way  for 
the  unity  of  the  nation.  There  is  little  in  Frederick's 
words  or  acts  to  shew  such  a  feeling ;  what  he  planned 
and  cared  for  was  the  strength  and  wellbeing  of  his  own 
Prussian  State.6  And  when  at  the  end  of  his  life  he  took 

e  The  idea  was  started  during  the  Seven  Years'  War  of  uniting  Germany 
under  Prussian  supremacy,  deposing  Francis  I,  and  getting  Frederick  himself 


THE   UNIFICATION   OF  GERMANY  455 

a  lead  in  the  politics  of  the  Empire,  by  forming  the  League  CHAP. 
of  Princes  to  oppose  the  ambitious  designs  of  Joseph  II,  XXIII> 
his  purpose  was  simply  to  maintain  the  status  quo,  —  that 
status  quo  whose  dangers  were  so  terribly  displayed  by  the 
events  of  the  next  twenty  years/  That  League  is  memo- 
rable, not  as  being  in  any  sense  a  project  of  reform,  but 
as  the  first  instance  in  which  Prussia  appears  heading  a 
party  among  the  German  States  in  hostility  to  Austria :  it 
is  the  beginning  of  that  Dualism,  as  the  Germans  call  it, 
which  at  last  reached  a  point  where  nothing  but  a  life  and 
death  struggle  could  decide  between  the  rival  powers. 

What  glory  Prussia  had  gained  under  Frederick  II  she  Prussian 
seemed  determined  to  lose  under  his  unworthy  successor,  po 
Nothing,  except  indeed  the  behaviour  of  the  minor  German  prenck 
princes,  could  have  been  weaker,  meaner,  less  patriotic  than  Revolution. 
her  conduct  in  the  struggle  with  France  which  began  in 
1792.*  In  1791  she  had  allied  herself  with  Austria,  but 
their  relations,  as  might  have  been  expected,  soon  ceased 
to  be  cordial.  Frederick  William  II  began  to  negotiate 
with  the  French  Republic,  in  the  hope  of  getting  some- 
thing for  himself  out  of  the  confusion,  and  in  1795  con- 
cluded with  France  the  separate  Peace  of  Basel,  by  which 
a  line  of  demarcation  was  drawn  between  North  and 
South  Germany,  the  former  being  declared  neutral. 

chosen  Emperor;  and  his  favourite  minister  Winterfeldt  was,  in  1757,  san- 
guine enough  to  believe  this  could  be  effected.  (See  Schmidt,  Preussens 
deutsche  Politik,  p.  22.)  Frederick  is  said  to  have,  while  Crown  Prince, 
formed  the  plan  of  marrying  Maria  Theresa,  whose  hatred  he  afterwards  so 
fully  earned. 

f  See  p.  405,  supra.  This  League,  which  Frederick  modelled  to  some 
extent  upon  the  Smalkaldic  League  of  the  sixteenth  century,  answered  its 
purpose  by  checking  Joseph,  and  preventing  any  change  in  the  constitution 
of  the  Empire.  See  upon  it  Ranke's  Die  deutschen  Mdchte  und  der  Fursten- 
bund. 

8  See  for  the  whole  history  of  this  period  Sybel's  Geschickte  der  Revolu- 
tionszeit. 


456  THE    HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  When  in  1806  the  Confederation  of  the  Rhine  had  been 

V  YTT  T 

formed  under  Napoleon's  protectorate  and  the  Holy 
Empire  extinguished,  Prussia,  which  by  a  convention 
(February  15,  1806)  had  obtained  possession  of  Hanover, 
part,  it  need  hardly  be  said,  of  the  dominions  of  her  late 
ally,  the  English  king  George  III,  endeavoured  to  unite 
the  Northern  States  in  a  league,  at  whose  head  should 
stand  her  king,  with  the  title  and  prerogative  of  Em- 
peror, the  Direktoritim  being  composed  of  himself  and 
the  rulers  of  Saxony  and  Hessen-Cassel.  Talleyrand,  how- 
ever, found  it  easy  to  baffle  this  scheme,  on  which  he  had 
at  first  pretended  to  smile  —  it  is  memorable  as  the  first 
appearance  of  the  conception  of  a  North-German  Con- 
federation —  and  soon  afterwards  the  defeats  of  Jena  and 
Auerstadt,  followed  by  that  of  Friedland,  left  Prussia  at 
A.D.  1806.  Napoleon's  mercy,  if  mercy  he  had  any.  By  the  Peace  of 
Tilsit  she  submitted,  losing  her  lands  west  of  the  Elbe, 
and  in  all  more  than  half  of  her  territories,  recognizing 
the  Confederation  of  the  Rhine,  and  abandoning  all  claim 
to  interfere  in  German  politics.  Meanwhile  Saxony,  the 
kingdom  of  Westphalia  which  Napoleon  had  just  created, 
and  the  other  purely  German  members  of  the  old  Empire, 
joined  the  Rhenish  Confederation,  that  is  to  say,  enrolled 
themselves  the  vassals  of  the  Parisian  crown.  French 
domination  was  offensive  everywhere,  but  nowhere  so 
offensive  as  in  Prussia,  the  feebleness  of  whose  Court 
seems  to  have  emboldened  Napoleon  to  treat  her  with  an 
insolent  scorn  he  never  thought  of  shewing  to  the  more 
The  War  of  tenacious,  though  not  more  patriotic,  Hapsburgs.  Hence, 
liberation.  ^QQ^  wjjen  t^e  Uprising  came,  and  the  swelling  wave  of 

popular  enthusiasm  tossed  back  the  French  beyond  the 
Elbe,  the  Weser,  the  Rhine  itself,  it  was  the  much-suffer- 
ing Prussian  people  that  was  foremost  in  the  fight;  it  was 
northern  heroes  of  the  sword  and  pen,  many  of  them  not 


THE   UNIFICATION   OF   GERMANY  457 

Prussians  by  birth,  but  drawn  to  Prussia  as  the  centre  of  CHAP.- 

V-V1  T  T  T 

national  hopes,  that  won  the  admiration  and  gratitude  of 
a  liberated  Fatherland ;  while  the  French,  who  had  been 
wont  to  treat  the  North  Germans  with  a  strangely  mis- 
placed contempt,  felt  for  'them,  after  the  campaigns  of 
Leipzig  and  Waterloo,  a  hatred  not  less  bitter  than  that 
they  bore  to  England  herself. 

This  great  deliverance  was  far  more  the  work  of  the 
people  than  of  King  or  Court ;  but  as  was  natural,  it 
induced  a  burst  of  loyalty  which  strengthened  and  glori- 
fied the  Prussian  monarchy  in  the  eyes  of  Germany,  and 
gave  it  an  opportunity  of  placing  itself  at  the  head  of  the 
nation.  For  the  national  feeling  which  had  smouldered  for 
two  centuries  or  more,  had  now  risen  into  a  strong  and 
brilliant  flame ;  and  it  was  on  Prussia,  more  than  on  any 
other  state,  that  its  light  was  shed.h  Austria's  merits  as 
well  as  her  faults  did  not  permit  her  to  be  popular ;  Bavaria 
and  Wiirtemberg  had  been  aggrandized  by  Napoleon  ;  Sax- 
ony had  adhered  to  him  throughout ;  Prussia  had  suffered 
most  grievously  and  triumphed  most  signally.  Now 
would  have  been  the  time  for  her  to  answer  to  the  great 
cry  that  went  up  for  freedom  and  unity,  to  secure  by  firm 
action  the  rights  of  the  people  in  a  consolidated  German 
state. 

But  the  hour  came  without  the  man.  Frederick 
William  III  was  well  intentioned  indeed,  but  feeble  and 
narrow-minded ;  and  his  court  had  not  yet  recovered  from 
its  horror  at  the  principles  of  1789  and  the  acts  of  1793. 
As  the  want  of  representative  institutions  and  of  the 
habit  of  combination  for  political  purposes  gave  the  desire 

h  Sybel  {Begriindung  des  Deutschen  Reiches)  well  observes  that  the  spirit 
of  German  nationality  was  largely  re-created  by  a  group  of  men,  some  of  them 
not  Prussians,  on  ground  East  of  the  Elbe  which  was  not  originally  German 
but  Slavonic. 


458  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  for  unity  no  means  of  expressing  itself  practically,  it  re- 

xxm.           mained  an  aspiration,  a  sentiment,  nothing  more.     Thus, 
The  Congress      ^       ^Q  (Congress  of  Vienna  met  to  reconstitute  Europe 

of  Vienna, 

and  Germany,  the  princes  were  masters  of  the  situation ; 
and  they  used  their  advantage  with  characteristic  self- 
ishness. The  proclamation  of  Kalisch  issued  by  the 
sovereigns  of  Prussia  and  Russia,  when  they  leagued  them- 
selves against  Napoleon  (March  25th,  1813),  announced 
the  object  of  the  two  powers  to  be  'to  aid  the  German 
peoples  in  recovering  freedom  and  independence,  and  to 
afford  to  them  effective  protection  and  defence  in  re-estab- 
lishing a  venerable  Empire.'  The  reconstitution  of  the 
country,  it  was  added,  was  to  be  effected  solely  by  the 
united  action  of  the  princes  and  peoples,  and  was  to  pro- 
ceed 'from  the  ancient  and  native  spirit  of  the  German 
nation  ;  that  Germany,  the  more  perfectly  this  work  was 
executed  in  its  principles  and  compass,  might  so  much  the 
more  appear  again  among  the  peoples  of  Europe  in 
renovated  youth,  strength,  and  unity.'  But  at  the  Con- 
gress nothing  was  heard,  and  indeed  nothing  would  have 
been  listened  to,  of  the  kind.1  When  it  opened,  Harden- 
berg  the  Prussian  minister  presented  a  scheme  which,  al- 
though it  recognized  in  the  princes  an  independence  in 
some  respects  considerable,  and  already  conceded  to  them 
by  the  treaties  securing  their  adhesion  against  France,  pro- 
posed to  treat  Germany  as  being  for  many  purposes  a 
united  state,  under  institutions  whose  tendency  would  have 
been  to  make  her  less  and  less  of  a  mere  league.  Austria 
however,  under  the  chilling  influence  of  Metternich,  him- 
self perhaps  prompted  by  the  darker  spirit  of  Frederick 

1  For  the  Congress  of  Vienna  students  may  refer  to  L.  Hausser's  Deutsche 
Geschichte ;  for  the  subsequent  history  of  the  Confederation  to  H.  Schulze, 
Einleitung  in  das  deutsche  Staatsrecht,  and  K.  Kliipfel,  Die  deutschen  Ein- 
heitsbestrebungen  seit 


THE   UNIFICATION   OF  GERMANY  459 

von  Gentz,  received  these  proposals  with  dull  disfavour  :  CHAP. 
the  minor  potentates,  headed  by  Bavaria  and  Wiirtemberg,  XXIII< 
entered  energetic  protests  against  anything  which  could 
infringe  on  their  sovereignty,  protests  so  sweeping  that 
even  Austria  was  obliged  to  remind  them  that  under  the 
old  Empire  certain  rights  were  assured  to  German  sub- 
jects, while  the  envoy  of  Hanover  exclaimed  against  the 
'  Sultanism '  of  these  members  of  the  late  Confederation  of 
the  Rhine.  At  last,  after  a  long  period  of  confusion  and 
uncertainty,  in  which  projects  for  the  restoration  of  the 
'ancient  venerable  Empire'  were  frequently  put  forward, 
and  supported  among  others  by  Stein,  a  counter-scheme, 
propounded  by  Metternich,  when  he  found  that  he  could 
not  secure  the  complete  independence  of  the  German 
princes,  was  moulded  into  the  Act  of  Foundation  of  the 
Germanic  Confederation.  The  work  was  hastily  done, 
under  the  pressure  of  alarm  at  Napoleon's  return  from 
Elba,  and  professed  to  be  only  an  outline,  which  was  to 
be  subsequently  improved  and  filled  in.  The  diplomatists 
were  exhausted  by  a  long  course  of  bickering  and  intrigue 
upon  this  and  other  questions  ;  many  were  dissatisfied,  but 
every  one  saw  that  his  opponent's  power  of  hindering  was 
greater  than  his  own  power  of  forcing  a  proposition 
through  ;  and  as  it  was  clear  that  something  must  be  done, 
people  brought  themselves  to  a  sort  of  acquiescence,  which, 
though  it  professed  to  be  only  temporary,  could  not  easily 
be  recalled,  and  made  it  harder  to  reopen  the  discussion. 
So  the  proposed  completion,  as  was  natural  in  a  matter  of 
so  much  delicacy  and  difficulty,  never  took  place ;  and  the 
revised  draft  of  the  Act  of  Confederation,  adopted  on  June  Estabii 
lOth,  1815,  a  week  before  Waterloo,  was  in  all  its  main 
features  the  constitution  which  lasted  down  till  1866. 
Prussia  yielded  with  unaccountable  readiness  —  unac- 
countable  except  on  the  hypothesis  that  her  ministers, 


460  THE    HOLY   ROMAN    EMPIRE 

CHAP.  Hardenberg   and   William    von    Humboldt,    despaired   at 

WT  T  T 

such  a  time  and  among  such  people  of  effecting  anything 
satisfactory — the  points  on  which  she  had  at  first  insisted; 
and  made  little  further  objection  to  the  carrying  out  of 
Metternich's  views.  Her  king  was  a  faithful  member  of 
the  Holy  Alliance  :  her  government  adhered  to  the  princi- 
ples associated  with  that  compact,  and  was  content  in 
internal  questions  to  follow  humbly  in  the  wake  of 
Austria.  While  the  Reaction  was  triumphing  in  the  rest 
of  Europe,  Particularism3  triumphed  at  Vienna,  and  the 
interests  of  the  German  people  were  forgotten  or  ignored. 
The  federal  constitution,  while  recognizing  fully  the 
sovereignty  of  the  princes  in  their  own  territories,  had 
made  only  the  feeblest  provisions  for  the  concession  of 
popular  rights  and  the  establishment  of  representative 
institutions  in  the  several  states.  Almost  the  only  expres- 
sion which  it  allowed  to  be  given  to  the  idea  of  national 
unity  was  in  the  creation  of  a  central  federal  body,  the 
Diet,  wherein  only  the  princes  and  not  their  subjects 
were  represented,  which  was  empowered  to  act  in  foreign 
affairs,  and  which  could  be  made  by  the  great  princes  the 
means  of  repressing  any  liberal  movements  on  the  part  of 
an  individual  member.  But  this  did  not  satisfy  Metternich. 
The  excitement  produced  by  the  War  of  Liberation  did 
not  at  once  subside :  the  ideas  of  freedom,  national  unity, 
national  greatness,  which  it  had  called  forth,  had  obtained 
a  dominion  over  the  minds  of  the  German  youth  ;  and  were 
eloquently  preached  by  some  of  the  noblest  spirits  among 
its  teachers.*  These  ideas,  however,  innocent  as  they 

J  Particularismus  is  the  name  by  which  the  Germans  denote  the  policy  or 
feeling,  which  maintained  the  independence  of  the  several  local  potentate! 
who  were  members  of  the  Germanic  body. 

k  The  history  of  the  movement  for  German  Unity  from  1815  onwards  may 
be  read  in  H.  von  Svbsl'i  Bcgrundung  des  Deutsckzn  Reiches. 


THE   UNIFICATION   OF   GERMANY  461 

would  now  appear,  and  well  founded  as  was  the  jealousy  of  CHAP. 

•  xxni 

Russian  influence  which  prompted  their  expression,  were 

watched  with  fear  and  suspicion  by  the  narrow  minds  of 
the  Prussian  king  and  the  minister  of  Francis  of  Austria. 
In  1819,  therefore,  Metternich  brought  together,  as  if  by 
accident,  the  ministers  of  ten  leading  German  courts  at 
Karlsbad  in  Bohemia,  and  procured  their  assent  to  a  series 
of  measures  extinguishing  the  freedom  of  the  press,  restrain- 
ing university  teaching,  forbidding  societies  and  political 
meetings,  and  erecting  a  sort  of  inquisition  at  Mentz  for 
the  discovery  and  punishment  of  democratic  agitators. 
These  measures  were  soon  after  adopted  by  the  Federal 
Diet  at  Frankfort,  and  followed  by  conferences  of  ministers 
at  Vienna,  out  of  which  grew  the  instrument  known  as 
the  Vienna  Final  Act  (Schlussakt)  of  1820,  whereby  the 
constitution  of  the  Confederation  was  modified  in  a  reac- 
tionary and  anti-national  spirit.  Such  securities  as  existed 
for  the  rights  of  the  subject  in  the  several  states  were 
diminished,  while  the  Diet  saw  its  powers  enlarged  when- 
ever they  could  be  employed  for  the  suppression  of  free 
institutions,  and  received  a  frightfully  wide  police  jurisdic- 
tion through  the  territories  of  the  minor  princes. 

This   Karlsbad  Conference  struck  the   keynote   of  the   condition  of 
policy  of  the  Federal  Diet  during  the  three  and  thirty   Germany 
dreary  years  that  lie  between   1815  and  the  brief  though 
bright  awakening  of  I848.1     If  the  selfishness  of  rulers  tie*. 
were  not  the  commonest  moral  of  history,  there  would  be 
something  extraordinary  as  well  as  offensive  in  the  horror 
of  change  and  reform  which  was  now  exhibited  by  these 
very  princes  who  had,  with  Napoleon's  help  or  connivance, 
carried  out  by  the  mediatization  of  their  weaker  neighbours 
a  revolution  far  more  sweeping,  and  in  point  of  law  less 
defensible,  than  any  which    the  patriotic  reformers  now 
1  See  Aegidi,  Aus  dem  Jahre  i8ig. 


462 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP. 
XXIII. 


The  party  of 
progress  in 
Germany, 


Its  diffi- 
culties. 


proposed.  These  potentates,  especially  those  of  Northern 
Germany,  were  for  the  most  part  possessed  by  the  same 
reactionary  feelings  as  their  two  great  neighbours  ;  their 
rule  was  harsh  and  repressive,  conceding  little  or  nothing 
to  the  demands  of  their  subjects,  and  prepared,  especially 
after  their  alarms  had  been  renewed  by  the  revolution  of 
1830  in  France,  to  check  the  most  harmless  expressions 
of  the  aspiration  for  national  unity.  Such  unity  now  ap- 
peared further  off  than  ever.  While  the  old  Empire  lasted, 
princes  and  peoples  owned  one  common  head  in  the  Em- 
peror, and  lived  under  a  constitution  which  had  descended, 
however  modified,  from  the  days  when  the  nation  formed 
a  single  powerful  state.  Now,  by  the  mediatization  of  the 
lesser  principalities,  the  extinction  of  the  Knights  of  the 
Empire  (Reichsritterschaft\  the  absorption  of  all  the  free 
cities  save  four,  the  class  which  had  formed  a  link  between 
the  princes  and  the  mass  of  the  nation  had  been  removed ; 
the  sovereigns  had,  in  becoming  fewer,  become  more  iso- 
lated and  more  independent ;  they  were  members  rather 
of  the  European  than  of  the  German  commonwealth. 
Those  moral  effects  of  the  War  of  Liberation,  from  which 
so  much  had  at  first  been  hoped,  now  seemed  to  have  been 
lost  utterly  and  for  ever. 

Meanwhile  the  German  liberals  laboured  under  the 
immense  difficulty  of  having  no  legitimate  and  constitu- 
tional mode  of  agitation,  no  lever,  so  to  speak,  by  which 
they  could  move  the  mass  of  their  countrymen.  They 
were  mere  speakers  and  writers,  because  there  was  nothing 
else  for  them  to  do ;  dreamers  and  theorists,  as  unthinking 
people  in  more  fortunate  countries  called  them,  because 
the  field  of  practical  politics  was  closed  to  them.  In  only 
a  few  of  the  states  did  representative  assemblies  exist ;  and 
these  were  too  small  and  too  limited  in  their  powers  to  be 
able  to  stimulate  the  political  interests  of  their  constituents. 


THE   UNIFICATION   OF  GERMANY  463 

Prussia  herself  had  no  parliament  of  the  whole  monarchy  CHAP. 
until  1847:  up  to  that  year  there  had  been  only  local  XXIII> 
Landes-Stdnde,  estates  or  diets  for  the  several  provinces. 

The  liberal  party  had  two  objects  to  struggle  for  —  the  its  aims: 
establishment  or  extension  of  free  institutions  in  the  sev-  establtshme* 

f  °f  constifa- 

eral  states,  and  the  attainment  of  national  unity.  As  re- 
spects  the  first  of  these,  it  may  be  remarked  that  the  mere 
passion  for  freedom  in  the  abstract  has  never  produced  a 
great  popular  movement.  Long  habit  has  made  English- 
men, Swiss,  and  Americans  think  liberty  essential  to  na- 
tional happiness ;  yet  liberty  has  in  general  been  desired 
rather  as  a  means  than  as  an  end :  and  there  must  always 
exist,  in  order  to  rouse  a  nation  to  disaffection  or  insurrec- 
tion, either  such  a  withdrawal  of  rights  previously  enjoyed 
as  wounds  its  pride  and  its  conservative  feeling,  or  else  the 
infliction  by  the  governing  power  of  positive  evils  which 
affect  the  subject  in  his  daily  life,  his  religion,  his  social 
and  domestic  relations.  Now  in  Germany,  and  particu- 
larly in  the  Prussian  State,  such  liberties  had  not  been 
known  since  primitive  times ;  and  there  were  few  serious 
practical  grievances  to  be  complained  of.  From  the  time 
of  Frederick  the  Great  Prussia  had  been  well  and  honestly 
administered.  Conscience  was  free,  trade  and  industry 
were  growing,  taxation  was  not  heavy,  the  press  censor- 
ship did  not  annoy  the  ordinary  citizen,  and  the  other 
restraints  upon  personal  freedom  were  only  those  to  which 
the  subjects  of  all  the  Continental  monarchies  had  been 
accustomed.  The  habit  of  submission  was  strong;  and 
there  existed  over  most  of  Germany  a  good  deal  of  loyalty, 
unreasoning  perhaps,  but  not  therefore  the  less  powerful, 
towards  the  long-descended  reigning  houses.  In  several 
of  the  petty  states  there  was  indeed  serious  misgovern- 
ment,  and  an  arbitrary  behaviour  on  the  sovereign's  part 
which  might  well  have  provoked  revolt.  Hessen-Cassel, 


464 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN    EMPIRE 


CHAP. 
XXIII. 


Attainment 
of  national 
unity. 


for  instance,  was  ruled  by  the  unworthy  minions  of  a  singu- 
larly contemptible  prince ;  and  in  Hanover  King  Ernest 
Augustus  on  his  accession  in  1837  abolished  by  a  stroke  of 
the  pen  the  constitution  which  had  been  granted  by  his 
predecessor  William. m  But  these  states  were  too  small 
for  a  vigorous  political  life ;  the  nobility  depended  on  the 
Court  and  were  disposed  to  side  with  it ;  the  power  of  the 
Confederation  hung  like  a  thunder-cloud  on  the  horizon, 
ready  to  burst  wherever  Austria  chose  to  guide  it.  It  was 
therefore  hard  for  the  liberals  to  excite  their  countrymen  to 
any  energetic  and  concerted  action  ;  and  when  the  govern- 
ments thought  fit  to  repress  their  attempts  at  agitation,  this 
could  be  harshly  done  with  little  fear  of  the  consequences. 
In  labouring  for  the  creation  of  one  united  German 
state  out  of  the  multitude  of  petty  principalities,  the 
party  of  progress  found  themselves  at  a  still  greater  dis- 
advantage. There  was  indeed  a  desire  for  it,  but  only 
a  sentimental  desire ;  an  idea  which  worked  powerfully 
upon  imaginative  minds,  but  had  little  hold  on  the  world 
of  fact  and  reality,  little  charm  for  the  steady-going 
burgher  and  the  peasant  whose  vision  was  bounded  by 
his  own  valley.  Practical  benefits  might  no  doubt  have 
been  expected  from  its  realization,  such  as  the  establish- 
ment of  a  common  code  of  laws,  the  better  execution  of 
great  public  works,  the  protection  of  the  nation  from  the 
aggressions  of  France  and  Russia ;  but  these  were  objects 
whose  importance  it  was  hard  to  bring  home  to  the 
average  citizen  in  peaceful  times.  The  seven  millions 
of  Germans  who  owned  allegiance  to  Austria  presented 
a  constant  difficulty.  They  were  nearly  all  Roman 
Catholics.  They  had  in  the  course  of  centuries  drifted 
away  from  their  brethren  to  the  north  and  west.  They 

m  On  the  death  of  William  IV  (of  Great  Britain)  Hanover  passed  to  his 
brother  Ernest  as  heir  male. 


THE   UNIFICATION   OF   GERMANY  465 

had  comparatively  little  sympathy  with  liberal  ideas  in  CHAP. 
politics,  and  they  had  stood  outside  the  main  current  of  XXIII< 
German  literary  developement.  Yet  they  were  of  Teutonic 
stock,  and  in  any  scheme  for  the  national  union  of  all 
Germany  room  must  be  found  for  them.  And  where  was 
the  movement  towards  German  unity  to  begin  ?  Not  in 
the  Federal  Diet,  of  all  places,  for  it  consisted  of  the 
envoys  of  princes  who  would  have  been  the  first  to 
suffer.  Not  in  the  local  legislatures,*  for  they  had  no 
power  to  deal  effectively  with  such  questions,  and  would 
speedily  have  been  silenced  had  they  attempted  by  dis- 
cussion to  influence  the  policy  of  their  masters.  It  was 
therefore  only  through  the  carefully  guarded  press,  and 
occasionally  in  social  or  literary  gatherings,  that  appeals 
to  the  nation  could  be  made,  or  the  semblance  of  an  agi- 
tation kept  up.  There  was  no  point  to  start  from  :  it  was 
all  aspiration  and  nothing  more ;  and  so  this  movement, 
to  which  so  many  of  the  noblest  hearts  and  intellects  of 
Germany  devoted  themselves  (though  the  two  greatest 
stood  aloof),  made  during  many  years  little  apparent 
progress.  A  Customs  Union  (Zollverein)  was  indeed 
created,  A.D.  1833-1835,  which  eventually  came  to  include 
all  the  German  States  except  Austria,  and  a  tie  thereby 
established  whose  material  advantages  were  soon  felt ;  but 
this  was  done  by  the  individual  action  of  Prussia  and  the 
several  States  which  one  after  another  entered  into  her 
views,  not  by  the  Diet  as  a  national  work.  Meanwhile 
the  strictness  of  the  repressive  system  was  still  main- 
tained :  Prussia,  though  now  ruled  by  the  more  liberal  A.D.  1840 
Frederick  William  the  Fourth,  was  still  silent :  the  in- 
fluence of  Metternich  was  still  supreme. 

Then  came  the  revolution  of  1848.     The  monarchy  of 
Louis  Philippe  fell  with  a  crash  that  sounded  over  Europe, 

*  Constitutions  of  some  sort  existed  in  most  of  the  German  States. 


466 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN    EMPIRE 


CHAP. 
XXIII. 

The  Revo- 
lution of 
1848. 


and  every  German  and  Italian  throne  rocked  to  its  founda- 
tion. In  Vienna,  Berlin,  Dresden,  and  Munich,  not  to 
speak  of  smaller  capitals,  there  came,  sooner  or  later,  risings 
more  or  less  formidable ;  more  popular  constitutions  were 
promised  or  granted  by  the  terrified  princes :  the  Federal 
Diet,  after  a  hasty  declaration  in  favour  of  the  liberties  it 
had  so  long  withheld,  made  way  for  a  national  Parliament, 
which  was  duly  summoned,  and  met  at  Frankfort  on  the 
1 8th  of  May,  1848.  As  the  king  of  Prussia,  cherishing 
a  sentimental  respect  for  Austria  together  with  a  natural 
dislike  to  revolution,  refused  to  accept  leadership,  this 
assembly  appointed  as  Administrator  of  the  Empire 
(Reichsverweser)  the  Archduke  John  of  Austria,  while 
the  Diet,  joining  in  this  appointment  of  the  Archduke, 
virtually  abdicated  its  functions.  Then  the  Assembly 
set  to  work  to  frame  a  constitution  for  united  Germany. 
According  to  the  draft,  completed  early  in  1849,  Germany 
was  to  be  a  federal  state,  under  a  hereditary  Emperor, 
irresponsible,  but  advised  by  responsible  ministers ;  and 
with  a  parliament  of  two  houses,  one  representing  the 
states,  members  of  the  Empire ;  the  other  the  people. 
On  the  28th  of  March  the  Assembly  offered  the  imperial 
dignity  to  the  king  of  Prussia.11  He  hesitated  to  accept 
it  without  the  consent  of  the  other  sovereigns ;  and 

n  In  1847,  when  things  seemed  quiet  enough,  Frederick  William  IV  had 
opened  negotiations  with  Austria  with  a  view  to  improving  the  constitution  of 
the  Confederation,  and  making  better  provision  for  common  defence  and  for 
internal  communications.  In  the  Berlin  revolution  of  March,  1848,  he  had 
no  doubt  behaved  with  irresolution,  but  had  shewn  some  real  sympathy  for 
the  people.  And  this  he  felt.  He  heartily  desired  both  the  wellbeing  and, 
to  a  certain  extent,  the  freedom  of  his  own  Prussia  and  the  greatness  of  Ger- 
many ;  but  he  was  unhappily  entangled  with  notions  of  divine  right  and 
various  other  mediaeval  whimsies  and  sentiments.  See  as  to  this  period  Bis- 
marck's Reflections  and  Reminiscences,  vol.  i.  ch.  ii. 

A  German  Parliament  had  been  demanded  in  October,  1847,  by  a  congress 
of  constitutional  reformers,  and  a  resolution  to  that  effect  submitted  in  the 


THE   UNIFICATION   OF  GERMANY  467 

exactly  a  month  afterwards  definitely  refused  it,  perceiving  CHAP. 
the  jealousy  of  some  of  the  princes,  although  twenty-nine  XXIIL 
of  them  had  already  expressed  their  approval  of  the 
scheme ;  disliking  several  parts  of  the  new  constitution, 
fearing  to  give  an  implied  sanction  to  revolutionary  pro- 
ceedings, and  feeling  himself  unfit  to  take  the  helm  of 
the  German  state  at  a  moment  of  such  difficulty  and 
confusion.  His  refusal  was  a  great  and,  as  it  proved, 
a  fatal  discouragement  to  the  liberals,  for  it  disunited 
them,  and  it  destroyed  their  hopes  of  a  powerful  material 
support.  Nevertheless  the  Frankfort  assembly  sat  for 
some  months  longer,  till,  having  migrated  to  Stuttgart, 
it  dwindled  down  at  last  into  a  sort  of  Rump  parlia- 
ment, and  was  ultimately  suppressed  by  force,  while 
Prussia,  at  first  in  conjunction  with  Hanover  and  Saxony, 
started  other  and  narrower  plans  for  national  organization, 
schemes  modelled  upon  those  of  1785  and  1806,  but  of 
which  nothing  ever  came.  Meantime  the  governments  The  Re-ac- 
had  recovered  from  their  first  alarm.  A  ustria  had  recon-  tion  •'  re- 

ITI  1111          T-»          •    >        i      i  establishment 

quered  North  Italy,  and  had  by  Russia  s  help  over-  Ofthecon- 
powered  the  Magyars ;  France  had  re-established  the  federation. 
Pope  at  Rome ;  everywhere  over  Europe  the  tide  of  re- 
action was  rising  fast.  In  1850  Austria  and  Prussia  took 
from  the  Archduke  John  such  shadow  of  power  as  still 
remained  to  him  as  Reichsverweser,  and  at  the  con- 
ferences of  Olmiitz  Prussia  resumed  her  attitude  of  sub- 
missive adherence  to  Austria's  policy.  By  the  middle  of 
1851  the  Confederation  was  re-established  on  its  old 
footing,  with  its  old  incapacity  for  good,  its  old  capacities 
for  mischief,  and,  it  may  be  added,  its  old  willingness  to 
use  those  capacities  for  the  suppression  of  free  institutions 
in  the  more  progressive  states. 

Baden  Chamber  on  February  2,  1848,  shortly  before  the  revolution  broke  out 
in  Paris. 


468  THE   HOLY  ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  The  effects,  however,  of  the  great  uprising  of  1848  were 

XXIII 

not  lost  in  Germany  any  more  than  in  Italy  and  Hungary. 

Effects  of  the    ,  '     .., 

movement  of  "  nac*  made  things  seem  possible  —  seem  even  for  a  mo- 
1848-1849.  ment  accomplished  —  which  had  been  till  then  mere 
visions  ;  it  had  awakened  a  keen  political  interest  in  the 
people,  stirred  their  whole  life,  and  given  them  a  sense 
of  national  unity  such  as  they  had  not  had  since  1814. 
By  shewing  the  governments  how  insecure  were  the 
foundations  of  their  arbitrary  power,  it  had  made  them 
less  unwilling  to  accept  change ;  and  had  taught  peoples 
how  little  was  to  be  expected  from  the  unforced  good-wiD 
of  princes.  From  this  time,  therefore,  after  the  first  re- 
action had  spent  itself,  one  may  observe  a  real  though 
slow  progress  towards  free  constitutional  life.  In  some 
of  the  smaller  states,  and  particularly  in  Baden,  it  soon 
came  to  be  the  policy  of  the  government  to  encourage 
the  action  of  the  local  parliament;  and  the  Prussian 
assembly  became  in  its  long  and  spirited  struggle  with  the 
crown  a  political  school  of  incomparable  value  to  the  rest 
of  Germany  as  well  as  to  its  own  great  kingdom. 

One  other  thing  more  the  events  of  1848-1850  did  most 
effectively  for  the  Germans,  if  indeed  that  wanted  doing. 
They  made  clear  to  the  nation  the  hopelessness  of  expect- 
ing anything  from  the  Confederation.  During  the  last 
sixteen  years  of  its  existence,  nothing,  except  the  promul- 
gation under  its  sanction  of  a  general  code  of  commercial 
law,  was  done  by  the  Federal  Diet  for  national  objects. 
Its  deliberations  had  for  many  years  been  carried  on  in 
secret.  It  spoke  with  no  authority  to  foreign  princes,  and 
behaved  with  sluggish  irresolution  in  the  question  which 
was  again  beginning  to  agitate  Germany,  of  the  succession 
to  Schleswig  and  Holstein,  and  the  relation  of  these 
duchies  to  the  Danish  Crown. 

The  restoration  of  the  federal  constitution  in  1850-1851 


THE  UNIFICATION   OF  GERMANY  469 

was  at  the  time  regarded  as  merely  provisional,  accepted  CHAP. 
only  because  Austria  and  Prussia  could  not  be  got  to  XXIII> 
agree  upon  any  new  scheme ;  and  the  successive  projects 
of  reform  which  thereafter  emanated,  sometimes  from 
governments,  sometimes  from  voluntary  associations,  kept 
the  question  of  the  reorganization  of  Germany  and  the 
attainment  of  some  sort  of  national  unity,  constantly 
before  the  people.  Thus,  although  nothing  was  done,  and 
the  tedious  discussions  which  went  on  moved  the  laughter 
of  other  nations,  the  way  was  secretly  but  surely  paved  for 
revolution.  In  1859  the  liberals  organized  themselves  in  Parties  in 
what  was  called  the  National  Union  (National-Verein),  a  GermM9- 
body  containing  numerous  members  in  nearly  all  the  Ger- 
man States,  and  among  them  many  distinguished  publi- 
cists and  men  of  letters.  It  held  general  meetings  from 
time  to  time ;  and,  when  occasion  arose,  its  permanent 
committee  issued  pamphlets  and  manifestoes,  explaining 
the  views  and  recommending  the  policy  of  the  party. 
That  policy  was  vague,  so  far  as  practical  measures  were 
concerned,  yet  clear  in  its  ultimate  object — viz.  the  union 
of  all  Germany  in  one  federal  state  (whether  republican 
or  monarchical)  and,  if  necessary,  the  absolute  exclusion  of 
Austria  therefrom.  This  last  feature  procured  for  it  from 
her  adherents  and  from  the  German  conservatives  gener- 
ally the  name  of  the  Little  German  (KleindeutscJi)  party ; 
and  they,  assuming  the  title  of  Great  Germans  (Gross- 
deutschen,  i.e.  the  advocates  of  a  Germany  which  should 
include  Austria),  founded  in  1862  a  rival  association,  which 
called  itself  the  Reform  Union,  and  in  like  manner  held 
meetings  and  issued  manifestoes.  It  found  strong  support 
in  Hanover,  Bavaria,  and  Wiirtemberg,  but  comparatively 
little  in  the  middle  states,  and  of  course  still  less  in  Prussia. 
Its  policy  was  mainly  defensive  ;  while  the  National  Union, 
whose  tendencies  would  naturally  have  been  philo-Prussian 


470 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP.  and  aggressive,  found  itself  embarrassed  by  what  seemed 

xxin.  tne  resoiutely  reactionary  attitude  taken  up  by  the  Prus- 
sian king  and  ministers  in  the  affairs  of  their  own  kingdom. 
A  contest  respecting  the  organization  and  payment  of  the 
army  had  broken  out  between  the  Government  and  the 

A.D.  1861.  Chamber  —  a  contest  embittered  first  by  the  accession  to 
the  throne  of  the  feudally-minded  King  William  I  (there- 
tofore Regent),  whose  assertion  of  the  principle  of  divine 
right  at  his  coronation  at  Konigsberg  had  surprised  and 
disquieted  thinking  people,  and  afterwards  by  the  admis- 
sion to  the  chief  place  in  the  ministry  of  a  statesman  who 
was  then  supposed  to  be  the  champion  of  tyranny  and 
feudalism,  even  of  the  Austrian  alliance.  During  the 
struggle  which  raged  in  the  years  1862-1864  over  the  right 
of  the  Chamber  to  control  taxation,  and  which  at  some 
moments  seemed  to  threaten  revolution,  it  was  hard  for 
the  reformers  to  hope  for  anything  from  a  power  which 
levied  without  the  consent  of  the  Chamber  the  taxes  it 
deemed  necessary  for  the  support  of  the  army,  and  treated 
the  representatives  of  the  people  with  a  roughness  under 
which  no  one  could  tell  that  there  lay  concealed  a  sub- 
stantial community  of  purpose. 

The  liberals  of  the  South  and  West  were  therefore  in 
1863  disposed  to  abjure  Prussia  as  given  over  to  a  repro- 
bate mind ;  and  Austria  thought  she  saw  her  opportunity. 
Encouraged  by  the  measure  of  success  which  had  attended 
his  efforts  to  bring  together  in  an  imperial  council  (Reichs- 
rath)  representatives  from  the  different  provinces  of  the 
ill  compacted  monarchy,  Schmerling,  then  chief  minister 
at  Vienna,  conceived  the  hope  of  recovering  the  ancient 

The  Fursten  primacy  of  the  Hapsburgs,  and  thrusting  the  now  unpopu- 
lar Prussia  into  the  background.  Accordingly  in  August, 
1863,  the  Emperor  Francis  Joseph  invited  the  reigning 
princes  and  representatives  of  the  free  cities  to  meet  him 


THE  UNIFICATION   OF   GERMANY  471 

at  Frankfort,  to  discuss  a  scheme  of  federal  reform  which   CHAP. 

v  V  T  T  T 

he  there  propounded,  and  which,  while  it  increased  the 
power  of  Austria,  appeared  to  strengthen  the  cohesion  of 
the  Confederation,  and  to  introduce  a  certain  popular  ele- 
ment into  its  constitution.  All  save  one  attended ;  but 
that  one  was  the  king  of  Prussia.  He  had  in  the  pre- 
ceding year  taken  for  his  prime  minister  Otto  Eduard 
Leopold,  Freiherr  of  Bismarck-Schonhausen  in  the  Old 
Mark  of  Brandenburg,  a  man  who,  having  been  Prussian 
representative  in  the  Federal  Diet  from  1851  to  1859,  had 
learned  by  experience  the  weakness  of  that  body  and  its 
subservience  to  Austria,  and  was  now  becoming  impatient 
to  try  some  speedier  and  more  forcible  method  than 
diplomatic  discussion  of  ending  the  existing  deadlock. 
Convinced  that  it  was  only  '  by  blood  and  iron '  that 
Germany  could  be  welded  into  a  national  State,  he  had 
resolved  to  create  a  powerful  army  and  to  place  it  com- 
pletely under  royal  control ;  but,  as  he  could  not  yet  avow 
his  designs,  the  conflict  between  him  and  the  majority  of 
the  Prussian  Chamber  continued  acute  until  the  day  came 
when  the  liberals  saw  what  those  designs  had  been,  and 
how  triumphantly  they  had  been  carried  through.  Under 
Bismarck's  advice,  King  William  refused  to  have  anything 
to  do  with  the  Austrian  scheme,  which  fell  therewith  to 
the  ground,  and  the  Diet  was  troubled  by  no  change  for 
the  rest  of  its  unhonoured  life. 

Austria,  however,  would  probably  have  tried  to  carry  The 
through  her  project  had  not  another  question  suddenly 
arisen,  which  turned  all  thoughts  in  a  different  direction, 
threw  the  German  powers  into  new  relations  to  one  an- 
other, and  became  at  last  the  cause  of  the  dissolution  of  the 
Confederation  itself.  In  November,  1863,  Frederick  VII, 
king  of  Denmark,  died ;  and  the  contest  so  long  foreseen 
and  delayed  between  the  Danes  and  the  Germans,  respect- 


472 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP. 
XXIII. 


ing  their  rights  over  Schleswig  and  Holstein,  broke  out 
with  unexpected  vehemence. 

The  Danish  constitution  of  1855  had  incorporated  these 
two  duchies  with  Denmark  for  all  purposes,  although  Hol- 
stein had  always  been  a  part  of  Germany,  while  Schleswig 
was  by  law  indissolubly  united  to  Holstein,  and  although 
the  inhabitants  even  of  Schleswig  were  in  great  majority 
of  German  speech.  The  Federal  Diet  had  protested  long 
ago  against  this  constitution  as  an  infraction  of  its  rights, 
but  it  was  not  till  October,  1863,  that  it  decreed  federal 
execution  against  Denmark.  When,  a  few  weeks  later, 
Christian  IX  succeeded  to  the  throne  in  virtue  of  the  ar- 
rangements which  Frederick  VII  had  been  empowered  to 
make  by  the  Treaty  of  London  in  1852,  no  steps  had  as  yet 
been  taken  to  give  effect  to  the  decree.  But  the  eyes  of 
Europe  were  at  once  turned  upon  the  new  sovereign, 
whose  title  was  disputed,  and  when,  under  the  pressure  of 
the  heated  populace  of  Copenhagen,  he  acceded  to  the 
constitution  incorporating  the  duchies  with  Denmark,  he 
found  himself  and  his  kingdom  at  once  committed  to  the 
struggle.  Prince  Frederick  of  Augustenburg  °  claimed 
Schleswig  and  Holstein,  and  was  supported  not  only  by  a 
considerable  party  in  both  duchies,  but  by  the  general  sen- 
timent of  the  Germans,  who  saw  in  his  candidature  the 
Excitement  only  chance  of  saving  the  duchies  from  the  Danes.  The 
m  Germany.  agjtation  in  Germany  soon  grew  vehement,  and  that  the 
faster  because  the  question  was  one  upon  which  all  parties 
and  sections  could  unite.  The  National  Union  and  Reform 
Union  met,  fraternized,  and  appointed  a  joint  permanent 
committee,  which  issued  addresses  to  the  nation,  established 
Schleswig-Holstein  Unions  throughout  the  country,  and 

0  Prince  Frederick  had  never  assented  to  Frederick  VII's  arrangements, 
and  contended  that  he  was  not  barred  by  his  father's  renunciation  of  the 
rights  of  the  family. 


THE   UNIFICATION   OF   GERMANY  473 

promoted  the  enlistment  of  bands  of  volunteers,  who  hur-  CHAP. 
ried  to  the  border.     Even  the  Federal  Diet,  though  the  XXIIL 
opposition  of  Prussia  and  Austria  prevented  it  from  recog- 
nizing Frederick  as  Duke,  carried  out  (against  the  will  of 
those  powers)  the  resolution  for  federal  execution  by  send- 
ing, in  December,  1863,  a  body  of  Saxons  and  Hanoverians 
to  occupy  Holstein. 

Prussia  had  a  difficult  game  to  play,  and  she  played  it  Policy  of 
with  consummate  skill.  Her  ministers  were  unwilling  to  Prussta- 
aid  the  Prince  of  Augustenburg,  both  because  she  was 
bound  to  Denmark  as  one  of  the  signatories  of  the  Treaty 
of  London, p  and  because  their  views  of  the  future  included 
other  contingencies  which  it  would  then  have  been  pre- 
mature to  mention.  But  if  hope  and  the  voice  of  the 
nation  called  on  them  to  act,  prudence  forbade  them  to 
act  alone.  It  was  essential  to  carry  Austria  along  with 
them,  not  only  because  the  Austrian  alliance  would  be 
needed  if  England,  France,  and  Russia  threatened  war, 
but  because  she  could  in  this  way  be  made  to  share  the 
unpopularity  which  backwardness  in  the  national  cause 
was  bringing  upon  Prussia,  and  because  she  was  thus 
alienated  from  Bavaria,  Hanover,  and  the  other  states  of 
the  second  rank,  with  which  her  relations  had  been,  espe- 
cially since  the  Frankfort  Congress,  so  close  and  cordial. 
When  the  co-operation  of  Austria  had  been  secured  — 
partly  by  adroitly  playing  on  her  fears  of  the  democratic 
and  almost  revolutionary  character  which  the  Schleswig- 
Holstein  movement  was  taking  in  Germany,  partly  through 
her  own  reluctance  to  let  Prussia  gain  any  advantage  by 
acting  alone  against  Denmark  —  Bismarck  resolved  to  take 
the  control  of  the  quarrel  out  of  the  hands  of  the  Diet,  so 
as  to  decide  the  fate  of  the  two  duchies  in  the  way  most 

P  The  Confederation  was  not  bound  by  the  Treaty  of  London,  as  it  had 
never  been  laid  before  the  Diet.     Prussia  and  Austria  were. 


474 


THE  HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP. 
XXIII. 


War  with 
Denmark. 


Cession  of 
Schleswig 
and 
Holstein. 


favourable  to  his  own  plans  for  the  reconstruction  of  North 
Germany.  Accordingly  Prussia  and  Austria  appealed  to 
certain  provisions  of  the  Treaty  of  London  recognizing  the 
special  rights  of  Schleswig  ;  and  summoned  Denmark  to 
withdrawal  once  the  law  of  November  i8th,  1863,  whereby 
Schleswig  was  finally  incorporated  with  the  Danish  mon- 
archy. When  the  Danes  refused,  a  strong  Prussian  and 
Austrian  force  was  poured  into  the  duchies,  not  without 
indignation  on  the  part  as  well  of  the  rest  of  Germany  as 
of  the  Prussian  liberals,  who  believed  that  the  object  of 
this  invasion  was  to  check  the  national  movement,  expel 
Prince  Frederick,  and  hand  over  Schleswig  to  Christian 
IX.  Early  in  1864  the  united  army  passed  the  Danewerk, 
stormed  Diippel,  overran  Jutland,  and  had  the  Danish  king 
and  people  at  their  mercy.  A  Conference  was  summoned 
in  London  :  but  it  broke  up  without  effecting  anything ; 
and  when  the  Germans  resumed  hostilities,  and  it  was 
clear  that  the  expected  help  from  England,  Russia,  or 
France*1  would  not  be  forthcoming,  Denmark  submitted, 
and  by  the  Treaty  of  Vienna  (October,  1864)  ceded  Schles- 
wig, Holstein,  and  Lauenburg  to  the  allied  powers  abso- 
lutely. Prussia  then  pushed  the  Saxons  and  Hanoverians 

1 1t  was  commonly  believed  at  the  time  that  Russia  would  not  aid  the 
Danes  on  account  of  her  obligations  to  Prussia  during  the  Polish  insurrection 
of  1863  ;  and  that  Louis  Napoleon  held  back  because  he  was  disgusted  at  the 
cold  reception  given  by  the  British  government  to  his  proposal  for  a  general 
European  Congress  not  very  long  before.  The  inaction  of  England  was  attrib- 
uted on  the  Continent  partly  to  the  personal  influence  of  the  Sovereign,  partly 
to  the  supposed  prevalence  of  '  peace  at  any  price '  doctrines,  partly  to  the 
fact  that  the  Danish  case  was  found,  when  closely  scrutinized,  to  be  no  strong 
one.  But  the  chief  cause  was  the  demand  made  by  Louis  Napoleon,  that  at 
the  close  of  the  war  France  should  receive  some  extension  of  territory  on  the 
left  bank  of  the  Rhine.  As  the  English  army  was  unprepared,  and  the  brunt 
of  the  fighting  would  have  fallen  on  the  French,  he  felt  entitled  to  fix  his  con- 
ditions, but  it  was  of  course  impossible  for  the  British  government  to  accede 
to  them,  and  equally  impossible  for  it  to  go  to  war  without  him. 


THE   UNIFICATION   OF  GERMANY  475 

out  of  Holstein,  and  began  to  strengthen  herself  and  make  CHAP. 
arrangements  for  the  administration  of  the  territory  she  XXIIL 
occupied ;   while  Austria,  seeing  this,   began  to  hesitate, 
and   suspect,   and  doubt   whether   her    course   had   been 
altogether  wise.     She  was  soon  to  be  still  more  cruelly 
undeceived. 

Now  that  the  Danes  were  for  ever  dispossessed,  the  Questions  as 
question  arose  —  what  was  to  become  of  the  duchies.  to*heir 
Everybody  expected  the  recognition  of  Prince  Frederick 
of  Augustenburg :  the  Diet  was  clearly  in  his  favour,  and 
Austria  seemed  quite  willing.  Prussia,  however,  refused 
to  consent.  Her  crown  lawyers,  to  whom  the  whole  mat- 
ter had  been  referred,  while  not  attempting  to  advocate 
certain  ancient  heriditary  claims  that  had  been  put  for- 
ward on  behalf  of  the  house  of  Hohenzollern,  pronounced 
in  an  elaborate  opinion  that  the  title  of  Christian  IX  was 
legally  preferable  to  that  of  Prince  Frederick,  and  that,  as 
the  king's  title  had  passed  by  the  cession  to  the  two  allied 
powers,  the  latter  were  now  free  to  deal  with  the  ceded 
territories  as  they  pleased.  Nevertheless,  she  professed 
herself  ready  to  recognize  Frederick  as  duke  upon  certain 
conditions,  which  were  declared  to  be  essential  to  the 
safety  of  Prussia  on  her  north-west  frontier,  as  well  as  to 
the  protection  of  Schleswig-Holstein  itself  against  the 
hostility  of  Denmark.  These  conditions  included  not 
only  a  strict  defensive  and  offensive  alliance  of  the  new 
principality  with  Prussia,  but  an  incorporation  of  its  army 
and  fleet  with  hers,  an  absorption  of  its  postal  and  tele- 
graphic system,  the  cession  of  its  fortresses,  and,  in  fact, 
a  pretty  complete  subjection  to  her  authority  in  military 
matters  and  in  external  politics.  These  proposals  were, 
as  was  expected,  rejected  by  Prince  Frederick.  He 
relied  on  Austria,  and  was  buoyed  up  by  the  sympathy 
which  his  pretensions  found  not  only  in  the  rest  of  Ger- 


476 


THE    HOLY    ROMAN    EMPIRE 


CHAP. 
XXIII. 


Divergence 
of  Prussian 
and 

Austrian 
policy. 


many,  but  even  in  the  Prussian  Chamber,  where  the 
liberal  majority  maintained  unshaken  its  opposition  to 
Bismarck's  foreign  policy  and  schemes  of  military  organ- 
ization. Meanwhile,  voices  began  to  be  raised  in  the 
duchies  for  annexation  to  Prussia;  Austria  grew  more 
and  more  suspicious ;  the  relations  of  the  officials  of  the 
two  Powers  established  in  the  conquered  territory  became 
daily  less  friendly.  Things  seemed  fast  ripening  towards 
a  war,  when,  on  the  mediation  of  Bavaria  and  Saxony,' 
the  Convention  of  Gastein  was  signed  between  the  rival 
sovereigns  in  the  autumn  of  1865.  By  this  treaty  Schles- 
wig  was  in  the  meantime  to  be  held  by  Prussia,  Holstein 
by  Austria,  the  question  of  the  ultimate  disposal  of  both 
duchies  being  reserved ;  while  Austria  sold  her  rights 
over  Lauenburg  to  Prussia  for  2,500,000  rix-dollars.  This 
was  felt  to  be  a  hollow  truce,  and  its  hollowness,  despite 
the  efforts  of  the  Diet  to  arrange  matters,  was  soon  mani- 
fest. The  Austrian  authorities,  knowing  that  they  could 
not  permanently  retain  Holstein,  allowed  an  agitation  to 
be  kept  up  there  on  behalf  of  Prince  Frederick.  Prussia 
vehemently  protested  against  this,  and  required  Austria 
to  maintain  the  status  quo.  Notes  of  complaint  and  re- 
crimination were  constantly  passing  between  the  two 
Powers,1"  notes  whose  tone  became  always  more  men- 
acing. Then  each  accused  the  other  of  arming,  Austria 
summoning  the  Diet  to  take  steps  to  restrain  Prussia, 
Prussia  beginning  to  shadow  forth  plans  for  a  reform 
in  the  federal  constitution.  Meanwhile  both  states  were 
arming  fast,  and  it  became  clear  that  the  only  question 
was  which  could  first  strike  a  blow,  and  upon  what  allies 

r  Austria  at  one  time  proposed  to  let  Prussia  have  Holstein  in  exchange 
for  part  of  Silesia :  at  another  she  offered  to  leave  the  duchies  to  be  disposed 
of  by  the  Diet.  Prussia  refused  both  propositions,  well  knowing,  as  regards 
the  latter,  that  the  decision  of  the  Diet  was  foregone. 


THE   UNIFICATION   OF   GERMANY  477 

each  could   rely.8     Prussia  had  secured    Italy,  which   de-  CHAP. 
sired  to  expel  the  Austrians  from  Venetia :  Austria  man-  xxni- 
aged   to    carry   with    her   most   of    the   greater   German  ^^ 
princes.     In  the  memorable  last   sittings  of   the  Diet  of  witkitcdy. 
June  nth   and  I4th,   1866,  Austria's   motion  to  mobilize 
the  federal  contingents,  with  a  view  to  federal  execution 
against  Prussia,  was  supported  by  Bavaria,  Saxony,  Han- 
over,    Wiirtemberg,     Hessen-Cassel,     Hessen-Darmstadt, 
and  several  of  the  minor  states,  thus  giving  her  a  large 
majority;   while,  for   Prussia's    counter-proposition   for  a 
reform    in    the   constitution    of  the   Confederation,  there 
voted  only  Luxemburg  and  four  of  the  'curiae,'  consist- 
ing of  northern  and  middle  states  of  the  third  rank,  seven- 
teen in  all  out  of  the  thirty-three.     The  partisans  of  both 
sides   having   thus  committed   themselves,  there  was   no 
use  in  further  resisting  Austria  in  the  Diet ;  so  Prussia,  Declaration 
having  entered  her  protest  against  its  proceedings,  with-  °/warl>y 

r  .  ,       ,  _  Prussia  on 

drew  from  the  Confederation,  declared  war  upon  Hanover  Austria  and 
and  Saxony  on  June    i6th,  upon  Austria  on  June   i8th,  some  of  the 

Germa 
states. 


and  pushed  her  armies  forward  with  a  speed  which  seemed 


almost  to  paralyze  her  opponents. 

The  shortness  of  the  war  and  the  completeness  of  the 
victory  surprised  Europe,  for  though  every  one  saw  the 
gain  to  Prussia  from  the  simultaneous  attack  delivered  by 
Italy,  few  had  known  how  great  was  the  superiority  of  the 
Prussian  to  the  Austrian  armies  in  firearms,  in  organiza- 
tion, and  in  the  military  skill  of  the  commanders.  At 
Koniggratz  in  Bohemia  the  main  Austrian  army  was  over- 

•  The  immediate  cause  of  the  war  was  the  convocation  by  Austria  of  the 
states  of  Holstein,  in  order  to  pronounce  on  the  rights  of  Prince  Frederick. 
This  Prussia  declared  to  be  an  infraction  of  the  Convention  of  Gastein  ;  and 
her  troops  accordingly  crossed  the  Eider,  in  order  to  reoccupy  Holstein  in 
virtue  of  her  condominant  rights  under  the  Treaty  of  Vienna.  Austria  with- 
drew to  avoid  a  collision  ;  and  made  her  final  motion  in  the  Diet  which 
brought  on  the  declaration  of  war. 


478 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


thrown  on  July  3,  and  forced  to  retire  on  Vienna,  while 
shortly  before  her  German  allies  suffered  defeats  scarcely 
less  crushing.  She  fared  better  in  Italy,  but  the  disaffec- 
tion of  the  Magyars,  added  to  the  shock  her  prestige  had 
received,  made  it  doubtful  whether  she  could  gain  anything 
by  prolonging  the  struggle.  Bismarck  was  wisely  content 
to  spare  her  the  humiliation  of  ceding  any  German  terri- 
tory,4 and  in  retiring  from  Venetia  she  lost  a  province 
which  was  a  source  rather  of  weakness  than  of  strength. 
The  Peace  of  Prague"  which  followed  marked  a  turning- 
point  in  German  history.  By  it  Prussia  increased  and 
consolidated  her  dominions  through  the  annexation  of  the 
rich  and  populous  territories  of  Schleswig-Holstein,  Han- 
over, Hessen-Cassel,  and  Nassau,  together  with  the  free 
city  of  Frankfort.  She  also  secured  her  supremacy  in 
Germany  by  creating  a  Federation  of  the  North  German 
States  under  her  own  presidency.  The  constitution  of 
this  Federation  left  some  measure  of  independence  to  the 
minor  princes,  permitting  them  to  send  and  receive  diplo- 
matic agents  to  and  from  other  courts,  levy  local  taxes, 
and  summon  their  local  legislatures  as  heretofore.  But  it 
effected  a  fusion  of  their  military  forces,  which  were  placed 
under  the  king  of  Prussia ;  it  vested  in  him,  as  president, 
the  conduct  of  the  foreign  policy  of  the  Confederation, 
and  the  right  of  making  war  and  peace  (this  last  with  the 
consent  of  the  federal  parliament):  and  it  transferred  to 
the  control  of  the  federal  parliament,  over  which  the  king 

*  See  as  to  Bismarck's  policy  in  dealing  gently  with  Austria  his  own 
account  in  his  Reflections  and  Reminiscences,  ch.  xx  (esp.  p.  47  of  vol.  ii  of 
English  translation).  His  judgement  was  approved  by  the  result,  for  before 
many  years  passed  he  re-established  friendly  relations  with  her. 

n  It  is  impossible  here  to  sketch  even  in  outline  the  part  played  by  Louis 
Napoleon,  then  Emperor  in  France,  in  the  negotiations.  Reference  may  be 
made  to  Sybel  (ut  supra)  and  to  Sir  S.  Walpole's  lucid  narrative  in  his  His- 
tory of  Twenty-five  Years,  vol.  ii. 


THE   UNIFICATION   OF   GERMANY  4/9 

presided  through  his  nominee  the  federal  chancellor,  CHAP. 
legislation  upon  a  variety  of  important  topics,  including 
the  taxation  for  federal  objects,  the  control  of  the  currency 
and  the  postal  and  telegraphic  system.  These  provisions 
secured  Prussia's  ascendancy  in  Germany ;  and  although 
much  that  was  anomalous  and  incomplete  might  be 
remarked  in  the  scheme,  as  could  hardly  fail  to  be  the  case 
where  one  member  had  twenty-four  millions  of  population 
and  the  remaining  twenty-one  only  five  millions  among 
them,  it  formed  a  cohesive  nucleus,  all  the  more  cohesive 
that  it  was  comparatively  small ;  and  by  accustoming 
the  citizens  of  different  principalities  to  act  together  in  a 
common  assembly,  it  gave  them  a  feeling  of  common 
citizenship,  which  mitigated  such  discontent  as  might 
have  been  produced  by  the  loss  of  local  independence. 
Nevertheless  the  problem  that  had  lain  before  Germany 
might  seem  only  half  solved.  The  exclusion  of  Austria 
from  the  Germanic  body  did  no  doubt  make  for  national 
union,  extinguishing  that  Dualism  which  had  distracted 
the  country  ever  since  the  rise  of  Prussia  in  the  days  of 
Frederick  the  Great.  But  with  Austria  went  her  German 
population  of  seven  millions,  filling  the  vast  territories 
of  Upper  and  Lower  Austria,  Tyrol,  Styria,  and  parts  of 
Bohemia  and  Carinthia  —  districts  which  had  during  many 
centuries  formed  a  part  of  the  old  Empire.  The  new 
league,  moreover,  at  whose  head  Prussia  placed  herself, 
included  only  the  states  north  of  the  river  Main,  and  thus, 
if  it  drew  closer  than  before  the  bonds  between  those 
states,  drew  also  a  more  marked  distinction  than  hereto- 
fore between  the  two  halves  of  the  country,  leaving  the 
great  principalities  of  Bavaria,  Wurtemberg,  and  Baden  in 
a  much  more  complete  isolation.  Germany,  in  fact,  might 
appear  to  have  purchased  the  completer  unity  of  her  north- 
ern half  by  the  sacrifice  of  her  unity  as  a  whole. 


480 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


t.D.  1867. 


It  had  been  stipulated  in  the  Treaty  of  Prague,  at  the 
instance  of  France,  that  the  South  German  States  should 
be  at  liberty  to  enter  into  a  separate  independent  league 
of  their  own  ;  and  the  French  government  doubtless  hoped 
that  now,  when  the  scheme  of  a  North  German  federation, 
first  broached  in  1806,  had  been  at  length  carried  out, 
something  like  Napoleon's  old  Confederation  of  the  Rhine, 
under  the  protectorate  of  France,  would  reappear  in  the 
South  as  a  counterpoise  to  Prussia's  power.  Very  differ- 
ent was  the  turn  which  events  took.  Within  a  few  months 
after  the  war  of  1866,  Bavaria,  Wiirtemberg,  Baden,  and 
Hessen-Darmstadt,  conquered  foes  whom  Bismarck  had 
judiciously  conciliated  by  sparing  them  loss  of  territory 
and  by  exciting  their  fears  of  France,  and  who  moreover 
wished  to  join  the  new  Zollverein  which  Prussia  was 
forming,  entered  into  secret  military  treaties  with  the 
North  German  Confederation,  whereby  they  bound  them- 
selves to  unite  their  armies  to  its  army,  in  the  event  of 
any  attack  on  Germany  by  a  foreign  power. 

Temporary  as  the  organization  of  the  North  German 
Confederation  evidently  was,  no  one  predicted  for  it  a  life 
of  five  years  only  ;  and  few  expected  its  developement  into 
a  grander  and  more  comprehensive  union  to  be  the  work 
of  its  bitterest  enemy.  The  alarm  of  France  at  the  dis- 
closure of  Prussia's  military  power  by  the  campaigns  of 
1866,  and  at  the  increase  of  her  strength  through  the 
extension  of  her  dominions,  was  heightened  by  the  publi- 
cation of  the  secret  treaties  just  referred  to.  Peace  was 
with  difficulty  preserved  when  the  question  of  the  cession 
of  Luxemburg  arose  ;  and  from  that  time,  at  least,  both 
countries  felt  that  there  existed  only  a  truce  full  of  sus- 
picion between  them.  Louis  Napoleon  seems  to  have 
been  hurried  into  speedier  action  by  the  belief  that  the 
military  treaties  had  been  extorted  from  the  South  German 


THE  UNIFICATION   OF   GERMANY  481 

Powers,  that  those  Powers,  and  especially  Bavaria,  would  CHAP. 
not   support  Prussia  should  war  break  out — he  had  not  xxl11- 
realized  the  strength  of  national  feeling  in  South  Germany 
—  and  that  there  was  disaffection  among  the  inhabitants 
of  the  newly  annexed  districts,  which  ought  to  be  taken 
advantage  of  as  soon  as  possible.     But  men  were  astonished 
that  the  inept  diplomacy  of  the  French  Emperor  should 
have  fired  the   train  so  suddenly,  and   should,  in  letting 
himself  appear  to  be  the  aggressor,  have  done  his  best  to 
make  the  war  which  was  declared  against  Prussia  with  '  a  jufy  15. 
light  heart,'  a  national  war,  in  which  all  Germany  felt  its  I87°- 
interests  and  feelings  involved.*     This  it  at  once  became. 
Seldom  had  such  a  national  rising  been  seen  — so  swift,  so 
universal,    so   enthusiastic,    sweeping  away  in  a  moment    The  war 
the  heartburnings  of   liberals  and  feudals  in  Prussia,  the  ™th  France, 
jealousies  of  North  and  South  Germans,  of  Protestants  and 
Catholics.     Every  citizen,  every  soldier,  felt  that  this  was 
a  struggle  for  the  greatness  and  freedom  of  his  country ; 
and   the   unbroken    career   of   victory  which   carried   the 
German  arms  over  the  east  and  centre  of  France,  proved, 
in  the  truest  sense,  what  strength  there  is  in  a  popular 
cause.     For  it  was,  even  more  than  the  admirable  organi- 
zation of  their  armies,  the  skill  of  their  generals,  the  cor- 
ruption and  weakness  of  the    Bonapartist  court  —  it  was 
the  passionate  ardour  of   the  whole  German  people,  who 
felt  that  at  last  a  crisis  had  come  when  patriotism  called 
on  them  to  put  forth  their  utmost  efforts,  that  secured  for 

1  The  breach  arose  over  the  offer  to  a  prince  of  Hohenzollern,  distantly 
related  to  King  William,  of  the  crown  of  Spain.  See  as  to  the  circumstances 
which  caused  the  declaration  of  war,  Sybel,  Begrundung,  and  Bismarck,  Recol- 
lections and  Reminiscences,  vol.  ii.  ch.  xxii.  Nothing  could  have  been  more 
foolish  than  the  diplomacy  of  Louis  Napoleon's  Foreign  Minister  ;  but  Bis- 
marck's artful  manipulation  of  the  so-called  '  Ems  incident,'  confessed  long 
afterwards,  served  at  the  moment  to  put  the  conduct  of  France  in  a  worse 
light  than  it  now  appears  to  bear. 
21 


482  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  them  a  triumph  to  the  completeness  of  which   European 

history  scarcely  supplies  a  parallel. 

Never  before  for  centuries,  not  even  in  the  War  of  Lib- 
eration of  1814,  had  the  nation  felt  and  acted  so  completely 
as  one.  All  saw  that  the  time  had  now  come  to  give  this 
practically  realized  unity  its  formal  political  expression  ; 
nor  was  there  a  doubt  as  to  what  that  form  should  be. 
The  imperial  name  under  which  Germany  had  won  her  first 
glories  in  the  great  days  of  the  Middle  Ages,  was  that  to 
which  the  sentiment  of  the  nation  turned ;  and  it  spared 
the  susceptibilities  of  the  sovereigns  whose  adherence  to 
the  national  cause  had  given  them  a  better  claim  on  the  regard 
of  their  subjects  than  most  of  them  had  before  possessed. 

Dec.  19, 1870.  By  a  strange  caprice  of  fate,  it  was  in  a  hall  of  the  palace 
at  Versailles,  which  the  arch-enemy  of  Germany  had  reared, 
that  the  first  of  the  German  potentates  offered  to  the  king  of 
Prussia,  in  the  name  of  princes  and  peoples,  that  imperial 
crown  which  his  brother  had  refused  in  1849.  On  the  i8th 
of  January  following,  sixty-five  years  after  the  dissolution 
of  the  old  Empire,  King  William  was  proclaimed  Emperor, 
and  Germany  became  again  a  single  state  in  the  eyes  of 
Europe. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

THE    NEW    GERMAN    EMPIRE 

THE  new  Empire  now  established  in  Germany  is  neither  CHAP. 
so  new  a  creation  nor  so  distinctly  a  unified  State  as  its  XXIV- 
name  might  seem  to  convey.     It  is  rather  to  be  described   Constitution 
as  an  extension  of  the  North  German  Confederation  under  °fthenew 

German 

the  form  of  a  federal  monarchy,  whose  peculiar  constitu-  Empire. 
tion  makes  it  unlike  all  other  monarchies  and  all  other 
federations.  It  consists  of  twenty-five  States  of  all  sizes, 
from  Prussia  with  a  population  of  33,000,000  down  to 
Schaumburg-Lippe  with  a  population  of  42,000.  Three 
of  its  members  —  Liibeck,  Bremen,  and  Hamburg  —  are 
free  cities,  survivors  of  the  ancient  Hanseatic  League. 
The  rest  are  hereditary  monarchies,  governed  by  sov- 
ereigns who  are,  according  to  the  constitution  of  each 
particular  State,  more  or  less  restrained  or  advised  by 
legislatures  of  a  more  or  less  representative  character. 
As  these  twenty-five  States  are  very  unequal  in  size  and 
in  power,  so  also  do  they  differ  in  their  relations  to  the 
Empire  as  a  whole,  for  Prussia,  by  far  the  greatest,  practi- 
cally predominates  over  all  the  rest,  while  a  few  of  the 
larger  —  Bavaria,  Saxony,  and  Wiirtemberg  —  stand  in  a 
privileged  position. 

The  Constitution  of  the  Empire  is  best  understood  when 


it  is  regarded  as  a  developement  of   the  Germanic  Con-  ment°fthe 

-,.,.,  A  .  r     i         constitution 

federation  which  was  erected  in  1815,  upon  the  rums  of  the  Of  the  North 
ancient  Empire.  It  has  been  evolved  out  of  that  League  German  cm- 
of  States  (StaatenbuntF)  into  a  federal  State  {Bundesstaaf)  * 

483 


484 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP. 
XXIV. 


Relation  of 
the  federal 
authority  to 
the  several 
States. 


by  three  stages.  The  first  was  the  exclusion  of  Austria 
and  formation  of  the  North  German  Confederation  under 
the  presidency  of  Prussia  in  1866.  The  second  was  the 
conclusion  of  a  series  of  military  treaties  between  the 
North  German  Confederation  and  the  South  German 
States  in  1866-1867.  The  third  was  the  formal  union  of 
the  North  and  South  German  States,  under  the  name  of 
an  Empire,  in  1871.  Of  these  three  steps  towards  unity 
the  last  seems  the  most  imposing  and  certainly  made  the 
greatest  impression  upon  the  world  at  large.  But  the  two 
former  were  really  more  important,  for  in  1866  a  national 
popular  assembly  was  created  for  all  North  Germany,  and 
immediately  thereafter  a  tie  of  immense  practical  impor- 
tance was  formed  between  all  the  German  States.  Thus 
the  existing  Constitution,  though  it  dates  from  April  16, 
1871 — some  important  amendments  were  made  in  1873 
and  1888  —  is  in  its  essential  features  that  which  was 
enacted  in  1866.  Its  details  are  too  numerous  and  intri- 
cate to  be  here  set  forth,  but  the  general  character  of  the 
federal  scheme  and  of  the  several  organs  of  government 
may  be  briefly  summarized. 

In  every  federation  the  critical  point  is  the  distribution 
of  powers  between  the  central  or  federal  authority,  and 
those  local  authorities  which  are  the  component  members 
of  the  united  body.  Here  the  central  or  federal  (i.e. 
imperial)  authority  controls  the  army  and  navy,  foreign 
relations,  railways,  main  roads  and  canals,  posts  and  tele- 
graphs, coinage,  weights  and  measures,  copyrights  and 
patents,  and  legislation  upon  nearly  the  whole  field  of  civil 
and  criminal  law,  together  with  the  regulation  of  the  press 
and  of  associations,  and  of  imperial  finance,  including  of 
course  the  customs  tariff  which  is  one  and  the  same 
for  all  Germany.  Bavaria,  however,  retains  the  manage- 
ment of  her  own  railways,  and  both  she  and  Saxony  and 


THE   NEW  GERMAN   EMPIRE  485 

Wiirtemberg  enjoy  certain  other  special  exemptions  or  CHAP. 
privileges.  But  though  comparatively  little  legislative  x*1^ 
power  is  left  to  the  States,  administration  remains  almost 
entirely  in  their  hands,  and  it  is  they  who  appoint  and  dis- 
miss nearly  all  the  executive  officials,  a  concession  to  their 
rulers  which  may  be  deemed  illogical,  but  which  the  politi- 
cal circumstances  of  the  country  prescribed.  Judicial 
power  is  in  so  far  a  federal  (imperial)  matter,  that  the 
greater  part  of  the  law  which  the  Courts  administer  (includ- 
ing the  law  of  procedure)  is  contained  in  the  imperial 
statute-books.  But  the  judges  are  everywhere  appointed 
by  the  State  and  act  under  its  authority,*  although  the 
uniform  interpretation  of  such  parts  of  the  law  as  rest  on 
imperial  legislation  is  secured  by  the  existence  of  a  Supreme 
Court  of  Appeal  (Reichsgericht),  which  sits  at  Leipzig. 
It  will  thus  be  seen  that  this  federal  Empire  is  for  legisla-  comparison 
tive  purposes  more  fully  unified  than  the  other  four  great  ZOT/*  other 
federations  of  modern  times  —  the  United  States,  Switzer-  federations. 
land,  Canada,  and  Australia  —  since  in  all  these  State 
legislatures  retain  wider  powers  than  do  the  State  legisla- 
tures of  Germany.  But  Germany  is  less  unified  for  the 
purposes  of  administration,  both  executive  and  judicial, 
than  are  those  four  communities,  and  her  constitution  ad- 
mits, as  regards  the  amount  of  rights  left  to  the  several 
component  States,  differences  between  the  greater  and  the 
lesser  altogether  opposed  to  that  principle  of  equality 
which  those  federations  have  deemed  essential  to  their 
peace  and  stability.19 

a  There  is  no  such  system  of  federal  Courts  through  the  country  as  exists 
in  the  United  States. 

b  One  part  of  the  Empire  is  not  included  in  any  State.  This  is  the  terri- 
tory of  Alsace-Lorraine  (Elsass-Lothringen)  taken  from  France  in  1871.  It 
is  organized  as  an  '  imperial  district '  (Reichsland)  under  a  governor  ap- 
pointed by  the  Emperor,  sends  fifteen  members  to  the  Assembly  (Reichstag) 
and  four  delegates  (without  power  of  voting)  to  the  federal  Council. 


486 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP. 
XXIV. 

Structure  of 
the  central 
govern- 
ment. 
The  Em- 
peror. 


The  legisla- 
ture. 


The  federal 
Council 
(Bundes- 
ratK). 


The  organization  of  the  central  or  federal  government 
of  the  German  Empire  is  not  less  exceptional  than  is  the 
structure  of  its  federal  system.  The  head  of  the  executive 
is  the  Emperor.  His  office  is  not  elective,  as  in  the  days 
of  the  Holy  Empire,  but  hereditary,  being  indissolubly 
attached  to  the  office  of  king  of  Prussia ;  and  the  imperial 
title  therefore  descends  according  to  the  family  law  of  suc- 
cession of  the  house  of  Hohenzollern.  Outside  his  Prus- 
sian dominions,  the  Emperor  enjoys  little  power  in  civil 
matters.  He  has  no  veto  on  legislation,  though  (as  will 
presently  appear)  he  has  another  means  of  controlling  it. 
He  appoints  very  few  civil  officials.  His  importance  in 
the  scheme  of  government  depends  on  the  fact  that  he  is 
commander-in-chief  of  the  army  and  navy,  that  he  has  the 
conduct  of  foreign  affairs  (action  taken  in  which  is,  how- 
ever, communicated  to  the  federal  Council),  and  that  as 
Prussian  king  he  exercises  a  predominant  influence  in  the 
federal  Council  (Bundesrath)  which  constitutes  one  House 
of  the  imperial  legislature.  There  is  no  imperial  Cabinet, 
but  the  Chancellor  of  the  Empire,  who  is  usually  also 
Prime  Minister  of  Prussia,  discharges,  with  the  assistance 
of  several  secretaries  of  State,  the  function  of  chief  minis- 
ter for  all  imperial  affairs.  He  presides  in  the  federal 
Council  and  has  the  right,  which  he  constantly  exercises, 
of  speaking  in  the  other  House.  But  he  is  responsible  to 
his  imperial  master  only  and  not  to  the  representatives  of 
the  people. 

The  imperial  legislature  is  also  a  peculiar  creation,  for 
it  consists  of  two  chambers  more  dissimilar  in  origin  and 
functions  than  are  the  two  Houses  of  other  federations. 
One  chamber,  the  federal  Council  (Bundesrath),  is  really 
a  prolongation  of  the  old  Diet  of  the  Holy  Empire,  which, 
beginning  as  a  sort  of  semi-popular  assembly  in  Carolin- 
gian  times,  had  passed  through  many  phases  before  it 


THE  NEW   GERMAN   EMPIRE  487 

perished  in  1806,  to  be  after  a  fashion  restored  in  1815,  CHAP. 
and  again  in  1866  for  the  North  German  Confederation, 
This  Council  consists  of  delegates,  or  rather  diplomatic 
agents,  appointed  by  and  representing  the  sovereigns  of 
the  several  States  comprised  in  the  Empire.  Of  these 
delegates,  fifty-eight  in  all,  seventeen  belong  to  Prussia 
(she  practically  controls  three  others  also),  six  to  Bavaria, 
four  to  Saxony,  four  to  Wiirtemberg,  three  to  Baden,  three 
to  Hessen,  two  to  Mecklenburg-Schwerin,  two  to  Bruns- 
wick, and  one  each  to  the  remaining  smaller  States.  The 
Bundesrath  meets  at  Berlin  and  sits  in  secret.  Its  mem- 
bers have  no  individual  discretion,  but  vote  under  orders 
from  their  respective  State  governments,  so  that  all  the 
votes  of  any  State  which  has  more  than  one  vote  are  cast 
in  the  same  way,  and  can  be  cast  whether  or  no  all  its  dele- 
gates are  present.  This  Chamber  therefore  represents 
not  the  peoples  of  the  States,  like  the  American  or  Aus- 
tralian Senates,  but  the  governments  of  the  States,  which 
may  or  may  not,  according  to  the  constitution  of  each 
State,  be  amenable  to  their  respective  peoples.  It  exer- 
cises various  administrative  and  judicial  functions,  and  has 
a  legislative  power  which  is  in  practice  more  important 
than  that  of  the  other  Chamber,  because  bills  originate 
more  frequently  in  it  than  in  the  latter.  Presided  over  by 
the  imperial  Chancellor,  who  is  deputed  thereto  by  the 
Emperor,  the  Bundesrath  is  the  organ  which  expresses  the 
collective  sovereignty  of  the  several  princes  of  Germany 
considered  as  heads  of  the  States  which  form  the  Empire ; 
and  through  it  the  greater  States,  or  any  strong  combina- 
tions of  States,  are  able  to  make  their  influence  felt.  It  is, 
however,  above  all  things  the  organ  through  which  Prussia, 
by  far  the  greatest,  asserts  her  predominance,  and  asserts 
it  none  the  less  effectively  because  the  method  is  covert. 
She  commands  little  more  than  a  third  of  the  votes,  for 


488 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP. 
XXIV. 


The  Diet 
or  popular 
Assembly 
(Reichstag) . 


Its  powers 
and  working. 


when  the  Constitution  was  framed  Bismarck  prudently 
contented  himself  with  a  smaller  representation  than  that 
to  which  her  population  would  have  entitled  her,  since  he 
sought  to  soothe  the  apprehensions  of  Bavaria  and  other 
States  of  the  second  rank.  But  her  strength  and  her  pres- 
tige usually  enable  her  to  get  her  own  way  in  the  Council, 
and  the  power  of  the  Emperor,  which  appears  small  when 
the  civil  functions  formally  attached  to  his  office  are  exam- 
ined, has  become  great  through  his  control  of  the  Bundes- 
rath,  as  well  as  through  his  position  at  the  head  of  army 
and  navy. 

As  this  Council  of  officials  represents  the  flock  of  Ger- 
man princes,  now  shepherded  by  the  strenuous  will  of 
Prussia,  so  the  other  and  elective  chamber  represents  the 
German  nation.  It  bears  the  old  historic  name  of  Diet 
(Reichstag),  but  it  is  a  new  creation,  such  as  pre-revolu- 
tionary  Germany  never  knew.  First  in  1848  did  there 
appear  a  popular  assembly  whose  menacing  and  fitful 
light  was  extinguished  in  the  following  year.  Bismarck, 
when  he  created  the  North  German  Confederation,  found 
it  needful  to  draw  the  peoples  of  the  several  States 
together  by  a  parliament  in  which  they  could  be  repre- 
sented, and  when  that  Confederation  was  expanded  into 
an  Empire  of  all  Germany,  the  stature  of  this  parliament 
grew  with  the  increased  need  for  such  an  expression  of 
national  unity. 

The  Reichstag  is  elected  by  universal  suffrage  in 
electoral  districts  which  were  originally  equal ;  and  has 
397  members,  of  whom  235  come  from  Prussia.  It  sits  for 
five  years,  but  may  be  dissolved  by  the  federal  Council 
with  the  consent  of  the  Emperor.  All  the  members  of 
the  Bundesrath  can  appear  and  speak  in  it;  and  the 
Chancellor  is  frequently  present  to  explain  the  views  or 
defend  the  action  of  the  imperial  government.  It  enjoys 


THE   NEW   GERMAN   EMPIRE  489 

full  powers  of  legislation,  yet  in  practice  these  powers  are  CHAP. 
reduced  by  the  fact  that  some  of  the  most  important  reve-  XXIV- 
nue  laws,  having  been  enacted  for  a  term  of  years,  cannot 
be  changed  except  by  the  consent  of  the  Bundesrath ;  and 
it  wants  one  important  attribute  of  the  parliaments  of 
Britain,  France,  and  Italy,  in  the  peculiarity  that  neither 
the  imperial  Chancellor  nor  any  other  executive  official  is 
responsible  to  it,  or  can  be  displaced  by  its  vote.  It  has 
therefore  no  control  of  administration,  except  in  so  far 
as  administration  is  affected  by  criticism  or  depends  upon 
legislation  and  upon  the  voting  from  time  to  time  of  sup- 
plies for  administrative  purposes.  Moreover,  as  already 
observed,  nearly  all  executive  work  rests  with  the  States, 
whose  officials  are  appointed  by  and  are  responsible  to  the 
State  governments.  In  no  country  are  officials  more  capa- 
ble, in  none  perhaps  does  official  work  attract  so  much  of 
the  best  practical  talent  which  the  nation  supplies.  Partly 
from  traditional  habit,  which  in  all  the  German  States  has 
left  foreign  relations  to  be  managed  by  the  sovereign, 
partly  because  it  feels  its  own  weakness  in  being  unable 
to  displace  the  Chancellor,  the  Reichstag  interferes  very 
little  in  questions  of  external  policy.  It  has  been  for 
many  years  divided  into  four,  five,  or  even  six  groups,  the 
mutual  repulsion  of  which  has  hampered  concerted  action 
to  resist  or  guide  the  imperial  executive.  Yet  with  these 
drawbacks,  and  though  it  has  not  gained  upon  the  other 
organs  of  government,  it  has  drawn  to  itself  much  political 
ability,  has  been  the  scene  of  many  striking  debates,  and 
is  an  effective  agency  in  welding  together  the  populations 
of  the  various  States  into  a  truly  united  German  nation." 

c  One  exception  is  illustrative.  Posen,  the  province  taken  by  Prussia  when 
Poland  was  partitioned  (1772  and  1793),  sends  a  body  of  Polish  members  to 
the  Reichstag  who  act  as  a  separate  section  there,  accentuating  the  particular 
ism  or  nationalism  of  their  province. 


490 


THE    HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP. 
XXIV. 
Constitu- 
tional aspect 
of  the  new 
Empire, 


How  far  a 
united  State. 


This  outline  may  serve  to  shew  what  is  the  constitutional 
character  of  the  new  Empire.  It  is  a  State  centralized 
in  what  concerns  its  foreign  policy,  its  military  and  naval 
organization,  and  the  larger  part  of  its  legislation,  but  not 
centralized  as  respects  its  officials,  whether  executive  or 
judicial.  It  is  more  completely  centralized  as  respects 
its  North  German  members,  who  were  practically  bound 
fast  to  Prussia  by  her  triumph  in  1866,  than  as  respects 
its  four  large  South  German  members  who  joined  by  treaty 
after  that  year.  Legally  regarded,  it  is  less  of  a  unitary 
State  than  the  old  Empire  was  in  the  days  of  Henry  VII, 
or  even  perhaps  in  those  of  Maximilian  I,  but  far  more  of 
a  unitary  State  than  Germany  was  at  any  time  after  the 
Peace  of  Westphalia  in  1648.  Practically  of  course  the 
country  has  attained  a  higher  stage  of  effective  action  for 
common  purposes  than  was  ever  attained  before. 

Since  the  formation  of  the  East  Frankish  or  German 
kingdom  under  Conrad  I  (A.D.  911)  Germany  has  never, 
except  during  Napoleon's  ascendancy  from  1805  to  1814, 
ceased  to  be  nominally  a  nation  and  a  State.  But  the 
phases  through  which  she  has  passed  in  those  ten  cen- 
turies are  notably  unlike  those  which  mark  the  evolu- 
tion of  the  other  great  European  countries.  In  France, 
Spain,  and  England  during  the  same  period  the  tendency 
was  constantly  towards  the  consolidation  into  a  strong  uni- 
fied kingdom  of  the  various  races  that  made  up  the  popula- 
tion as  well  as  of  the  principalities  into  which  the  territory 
was  divided.  In  Italy  there  was  down  till  the  French 
Revolution  no  such  tendency ;  that  country,  disunited 
ever  since  the  entrance  of  the  Lombards  in  the  sixth  cen- 
tury, remained  no  more,  and  perhaps  no  less,  disunited 
in  1 794.  But  in  Germany  the  centripetal  forces  which  had 
generally  tended  to  prevail  from  Conrad  I  to  Henry  IV 
were  suddenly  arrested  by  the  strife  with  the  Popes  and 


THE   NEW  GERMAN   EMPIRE  491 

the  wars  of  the  Emperors  in  Italy.     After  Frederick  II,  CHAP. 
the  centrifugal  forces  decisively  prevailed ;  and  the  pro-  XXIV- 
cess  of  dissolution  went  on,  slowly  but  steadily,  till  the 
Peace  of  Westphalia,  after  which  the  country  was  nothing 
more  than    a  loosely-constructed  Confederation.      But  if 
that  process  had  been  slow,  the  reverse  process  was  sur- 
prisingly swift.      Germany  had  never  seemed  more  dis- 
united than  she  was  in   1864.      In   1866  she  began  the 
work  of  political  reunion,  and  in  1871  that  work  was  prac- 
tically complete. 

To  the  intellectual  and  moral  causes  which  enabled  her 
statesmen  to  accomplish  this  work  so  promptly  I  shall 
presently  return.  Meantime  let  me  endeavour  to  answer 
a  question  which  will  be  put  by  those  who  have  followed 
the  story  of  the  nation  from  the  days  of  the  first  Frank- 
ish  Emperor  who  brought  all  Germans  under  his  sceptre. 
They  will  ask  —  What  are  the  actual  forces  at  work  to- 
day ?  What  are  the  prospects  of  this  recently-organized  Prospects  of 
federal  State?  Are  the  centripetal  tendencies  stronger  themain- 

~         tenance  of 

now  than  they  were  in  the  seventeenth  century  ?     Will  it,  a  United 
like  the  old  Empire,  dissolve  into  separate  political  com-   Germany. 
munities  ?      Or   will   it   follow   the    path   which   popular 
sentiment   has,  ever   since   1813,  marked  out   for  it,  by 
becoming  a  compact  and  united  Power,  such  as  France 
has  been  for  some  centuries,  such  as  Italy  became  under 
Victor  Emanuel  ? 

When  the  new  Empire  started  on  its  career  in  1871, 
not  a  few  observers  in  foreign  countries  doubted  whether 
it  could  long  hold  together.  They  pointed  to  the  com- 
plicated nature  of  a  constitution  which  might  prove  hard 
to  work,  and  which  must  involve  constant  friction.  They 
dwelt  on  the  elements  of  jealousy  and  discord  that  were 
present,  not  merely  in  the  existence  of  separate  Courts, 
where  a  long  descended  dynasty  was  surrounded  by  a 


492  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  proud  nobility,  but  also  in  the  differences  of  character, 

xxlv'  habits,  traditions,  and  religion  among  the  various  German 
races.  Admitting  the  warmth  of  national  sentiment 
evoked  by  the  war  of  1870,  they  insisted  that  this  senti- 
ment could  not  be  relied  on  to  keep  the  whole  people 
together  in  more  peaceful  days  or  under  the  rule  of  less 
able  and  forceful  ministers  than  Bismarck  had  shewn 
himself.  And  they  were  confirmed  in  these  forebodings 
by  the  belief  which  still  haunted  them  that  the  Germans 
were  an  unpractical  race,  likely  to  be  led  astray  by  their 
love  for  theories,  ill  fitted  to  work  a  piece  of  political 
machinery  more  abnormal  if  not  more  intricate  than  is 
either  the  British  or  the  American  Constitution. 

The  event  has  belied  these  predictions.  Comparatively 
few  constitutional  difficulties  have  arisen,  comparatively 
few  political  crises  have  turned  upon  the  federal  structure 
of  the  government  or  the  claims  of  the  States  as  against 
the  central  authority.  The  leadership  of  Prussia  has  not 
been  challenged  by  the  minor  States.  Germany  has, 
without  becoming  Prussian,  grown  to  be  more  and  more 
a  united  nation ;  and,  so  far  from  falling  back  into  its 
old  divisions,  or  splitting  up  into  racial  sections,  it  has 
developed  a  cohesive  force  and  a  Pan-Germanic  senti- 
ment which  may  even  draw  to  itself,  when  the  time 
comes  for  the  dissolution  of  the  ill  compacted  Austro- 
Hungarian  monarchy,  the  eight  millions  of  Germans  who 
inhabit  the  western  half  of  that  spacious  realm.d 

Among  the  causes  which  have  enabled  the  federal 
constitution  to  work  smoothly  and  consolidated  the  unity 

d  The  fact  that  the  inhabitants  of  the  Archduchy  of  Austria,  as  well  as  of 
Tyrol,  Styria,  and  Carinthia,  are  nearly  all  Roman  Catholics,  may  interpose 
difficulties  on  both  sides  and  retard  this  issue.  Yet  it  cannot  be  pronounced 
improbable  ;  and  one  of  its  consequences  would  be  to  make  the  German 
Empire  a  Mediterranean  as  well  as  a  North  Sea  and  Baltic  Power. 


THE   NEW   GERMAN   EMPIRE  493 

of  the  nation,  the  first  place  must  be  assigned  to  the  ex-  CHAP. 
ternal   pressure   which   the   presence   of   two   formidable  XXIV- 
neighbour  Powers,  France  and  Russia,  has  applied.     An  have  made 
immense  and  highly-disciplined  army  has   been  deemed  for  Union 
a  necessity ;  and  the  circumstance  that  nearly  every  citi-  stnce  l871' 
zen  is  or  has  been  a  soldier  has  kept  the  spirit  of  German  Pressure  of 
pride  and  German  patriotism  at  a  high  temperature,  has  p^.s 
inculcated  the  habit  of  obedience,  has  given  an  imposing 
prestige  to  the  imperial  Commander-in-chief. 

Unlike  its  venerable  predecessor,  this  new  Empire  rests 
on  a  national  basis.  No  foreign  Power  is  a  member  of 
«  the  Empire  in  respect  of  German  territory.  No  State 
except  Prussia  holds  any  territory  in  which  German  is  not 
the  prevailing  tongue.  No  one  of  the  federated  States 
can  now  make  any  separate  alliance  with  any  foreign 
Power.  Hardly  any  are  even  represented  at  a  foreign 
court. 

It  has  been  the  good  fortune  of  the  federal  Empire  Political 
that  State  lines  have  not  coincided  with  the  lines  on 
which  either  material  interest  or  religious  feeling  has 
built  up  political  parties.  Neither  in  Prussia  nor  in  any 
of  the  other  greater  States  does  one  kind  of  economic 
interest,  either  the  agricultural  or  the  commercial,  either 
the  mining  or  the  manufacturing,  prevail  to  the  exclu- 
sion of  the  others.  So,  though  Prussia  is  mainly  Pro- 
testant, there  is  a  large  Roman  Catholic  population  on 
the  Lower  Rhine  and  in  Westphalia  as  well  as  in  Posen ; 
and,  though  Bavaria  is  mainly  Roman  Catholic,  there  is 
a  considerable  Protestant  population  in  the  Upper  Main 
basin  and  in  the  Palatinate.  Parties  have  been  based 
on  real  or  supposed  class  interests  or  on  economic  doc- 
trines or  on  religious  sympathy.  They  have  not  been, 
except  in  the  case  of  the  Poles  of  Posen,  local  parties. 
Similarly,  and  largely  for  this  reason,  the  political  contro- 


494 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP. 
XXIV- 


industrial 


versies  that  have  from  time  to  time  arisen  have  not  ap- 
pealed to,  and  have  not  tended  to  excite,  either  State 
feeling  against  the  central  government,  or  animosities 
between  the  States  themselves.  Neither  the  conflict 
maintained  by  Bismarck  and  Falk  against  the  claims  of 
the  Roman  Catholic  hierarchy  which  lasted  from  1873 
till  1886,  nor  the  efforts  to  check  by  penal  legislation 
the  growth  of  Socialism,  nor  the  disputes  over  the  pro- 
tective tariffs  from  time  to  time  enacted,  have  evoked 
disruptive  tendencies.  Occupied  with  such  questions  as 
these,  men  were  not  led  to  occupy  themselves  with  the 
constitutional  structure  of  the  government.  Thus  it  has 
befallen  that  the  chief  political  parties  have  found  their 
adherents  in  every  one  of  the  greater  States  and  have  not 
tended  to  identify  themselves  with  any  particular  State  or 
group  of  States.  The  spirit  of  party,  which  in  some  fed- 
erations has  proved  a  powerful  segregative  force,  has  in 
Germany  worked  rather  to  associate  in  pursuit  of  the  same 
aims  politicians  belonging  to  different  States,  making  them 
feel  their  interests  to  be  common,  and  giving  them  the 
habit  of  co-operation  in  the  Reichstag.  Nor  is  it  idle  to 
remark  that  South-western  and  South-central  Germany, 
the  region  which  had  least  felt  Prussian  influence  and  in 
which  jealousy  of  a  Prussian  head  of  the  nation  might 
have  been  chiefly  expected,  was  the  region  in  which  the 
memories  and  traditions  of  the  mediaeval  Empire  had 
retained  most  force  and  freshness,  and  in  which  there- 
fore popular  sentiment  was  found  naturally  disposed  to 
acquiesce  in  a  restoration  of  the  imperial  title. 

Let  it  be  also  noted  that  the  establishment  of  the  new 
Empire  coincided  with,  and  in  some  measure  accelerated, 
a  swift  and  striking  deveiopement  of  industrial  resources. 
Germany  was  already  becoming  a  great  manufacturing  and 
trading  community.  Increased  trade  and  population  led 


THE   NEW   GERMAN   EMPIRE  495 

to  the  making  of  more  railways,  and  to  more  traffic  upon  CHAP. 

v-v1  T\7 

them,  and  thus  the  immense  growth  of  internal  intercourse 
and  of  wealth  drew  the  various  parts  of  the  country  more 
closely  together,  causing  each  to  feel  how  much  it  gained 
from  being  united  to  the  rest  under  one  government  and 
one  system  of  law.  These  economic  changes  induced 
a  change  in  the  minds  of  men.  Old-fashioned  'par- 
ticularism '  waned  and  idealistic  republicanism  vanished. 
Thought  and  will  were  directed  to  practical  ends.  Mili- 
tarism and  Industrialism,  which  have  been  perhaps  the 
most  potent  forces  in  modern  Germany,  alike  aided  the 
assimilative  process.  The  former  embraced,  the  latter  did 
not  repel,  the  idea  of  a  Pan-German  monarchy.  Both 
welcomed  centralization. 

Much  then  of  the  success  which  has  attended  the 
constitution  of  the  new  Empire  has  been  due  to  the 
favouring  conditions  and  circumstances  of  the  time,  much 
to  the  sagacity  of  Bismarck  and  his  fellow  statesmen  who 
in  constructing  their  scheme  preferred  practical  conven- 
ience to  theoretic  symmetry.  Yet  the  chief  reason  why  strength  tf 
the  building  has  proved  itself  stable  lies  in  the  fact  that  national 

feeling. 

its  foundations  were  long  ago  laid  deep  and  firm.  The 
permanence  of  an  institution  depends  not  merely  on  the 
material  interests  that  support  it,  but  on  its  conformity 
to  the  deep-rooted  sentiment  of  the  men  for  whom  it  has 
been  made.  When  it  draws  to  itself  and  provides  a  fit- 
ting expression  for  that  sentiment,  the  sentiment  becomes 
thereby  not  only  more  vocal  but  actually  stronger,  and  in 
its  turn  imparts  a  fuller  vitality  to  the  institution.  In  the 
case  of  Germany,  as  in  that  of  Italy,  there  had  been  for 
at  least  two  generations  before  1870  a  constant  ripening 
towards  change  and  a  growing  desire  for  unity,  although 
the  strength  of  this  feeling  was  not  revealed  till  the 
moment  came  which  gave  it  scope  for  vigorous  action. 


496 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP. 
XXIV. 
Its  growth 
since  1814. 


First  brought  into  self-conscious  life  by  the  great  struggle 
of  the  War  of  Liberation,  it  was  slowly  developed  and 
directed  by  a  variety  of  concurrent  forces ;  partly  by  that 
longing  for  political  freedom  and  equal  civil  rights  which 
found  its  nearest  enemy  in  the  tyranny  of  many  of  the 
petty  princes;  partly  by  the  decline,  evident  through  all 
Europe,  of  the  ancient  sentiment  of  personal  loyalty,  and 
the  substitution  therefor  of  a  rational  conception  of  the 
nature  of  government  and  the  rights  of  the  people ;  partly 
by  the  dread  of  France  and  the  resolve  to  prevent  her 
from  again  extending  her  frontier  to  the  Lower  Rhine; 
partly  by  the  better  knowledge  of  their  brethren  which 
increased  facilities  of  communication  gave  to  every  branch 
of  the  German  race ;  but  most  of  all  by  what  we  call  the 
instinct  or  passion  of  nationality,  the  desire  of  a  people 
already  conscious  of  a  moral  and  social  unity,  to  see  such 
unity  expressed  and  realized  under  a  single  government, 
which  shall  give  it  a  place  and  name  among  civilized 
states.  The  most  powerful  factors  in  the  creation  of  this 
national  spirit  were  the  varied  literary  activity  of  Germany 
since  the  days  of  Lessing,  the  bracing-up  of  moral  fibre  by 
the  teachings  of  Immanuel  Kant,  the  strenuous  intellectual 
life  which  produced  not  only  two  famous  poets  but  a  brill- 
iant group  of  philosophers,  historians,  and  jurists,  together 
with  the  awakened  interest  and  pride  of  the  people  in  their 
earlier  history,  which  was  one  of  the  firstfruits  of  that  liter- 
ary revival.  Causes  not  dissimilar  were  at  work  in  Italy, 
though  there  the  actual  oppression  of  foreign  rulers  made 
the  sentiment  more  vehement.  And  it  need  not  be  doubted 
that  the  example  of  the  efforts  which  Italy,  Hungary,  and 
Poland,  not  to  speak  of  smaller  peoples,  were  making  to 
attain  or  reconquer  national  political  life,  had  its  influence 
upon  the  Germans,  however  little  sympathy  those  efforts 
may  have  found  among  them. 


THE   NEW   GERMAN   EMPIRE  497 

Time,  and  the  long  labours  of  many  earnest  hearts  ad-  CHAP. 
dressing  their  countrymen  through  the  press  and  in  the  XXIV- 
Universities,  were  needed  to  mature  this  feeling  of  moral, 
to  strengthen  this  passion  for  political  unity,  to  make   it 
familiar  and  dear  to  the  mass  of  the  people,  to  give  it  a 
hold  upon  their  imagination.     It  was  not  wonderful  that  share  of 
in  looking  on  the  apathy  of  their  fellow  citizens  and  the  theorist3  and 

J  practical 

selfishness  of  their  princes,  these  pure  and   noble  spirits  statesmen  in 
should  sometimes  have  despaired  of  success.     And  even  the  attain- 
when  the  feeling  had  been  created  and  the  occasion  came  ^L 
which  displayed  its  strength,  it  might  have  failed  to  fulfil 
its  work,  had  not  the  power   to  use   and  guide   it  been 
lodged  in  the  hands  of  a  forceful  and  keen-sighted  practi- 
cal statesman.     It  was  with  Germany  even  as  with  Italy, 
where   the  work  of  Gioberti,  Manin,  Mazzini,  and   their 
brethren  might  have  remained  unfinished  but  for  Cavour. 
And,  as  in  Italy,  the  work  was  not  carried  through  in  the 
way  or  by  the  means  which  the  first  labourers  had  for  the 
most  part  intended  or  desired.     The  creation  of  a  state  de 
novo  on  ground  cleared  of  all  the  existing  principalities,  a  Nature  of  the 
state  which,  even  if   in  form  a  monarchy  (though  most  frocess  m 

J    ^  Germany  and 

would  have  preferred  a  republic),  should  be  based  on  the 
recognition  of  popular  rights,  was  what  the  idealistic  poli- 
ticians of  both  countries  had  looked  forward  to.  But  in 
both  it  was  by  the  advance  of  an  existing  state,  which 
extended  itself  to  include  wider  and  wider  territories,  and 
gave  to  them  its  organization,  that  the  unity  of  the  nation 
was  brought  about.  And  this  was  done  with  little  or  no 
change  in  the  internal  constitution  of  a  growing  kingdom,  lit- 
tle movement  (except  in  the  way  of  an  extended  suffrage) 
towards  a  resettlement  of  society  on  democratic  foundations. 
In  the  constitution  of  the  North  German  Confederation  and 
the  new  German  Empire,  there  is  no  mention  and  slight 
indirect  recognition  of  those  '  Fundamental  Rights  of  the 

2K 


498 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP. 
XXIV. 

'Prussia's 
mission '  : 
real  char- 
acter of  her 
policy. 


German  people'  on    which  the  Frankfort   Parliament  of 
1848-1849  spent  so  much  precious  time  and  toil. 

The  Prussian  State  by  which  the  work  was  accom- 
plished, had  not  in  earlier  days  shewn  much  sense  of 
what  came  to  be  afterwards  called  its  'German  mission.' 
Neither  in  the  words  or  acts  of  the  great  Frederick  (nor 
indeed  in  those  of  his  predecessors)  is  there  a  trace  of 
what  may  be  called  Pan-Teutonic  patriotism,  of  any  en- 
thusiasm for  the  splendour  and  happiness  of  Germany  as 
a  whole.  Frederick's  purpose  was  to  build  up  a  strong 
and  well-administered  Prussian  kingdom.  For  his  German 
neighbours  he  had  no  more  regard  than  for  Frenchmen 
or  Swedes ;  for  the  German  language  and  literature  little 
but  contempt.  The  policy  of  his  first  two  successors  was 
distinctly  Prussian  rather  than  German ;  and  the  romantic 
Frederick  William  the  Fourth  disappointed  the  hopes  of 
the  nation  almost  as  grievously  in  1849  as  Frederick  Will- 
iam the  Third  had  done  thirty-five  years  before.  No 
European  court  had  been  more  consistently  practical  than 
that  of  Berlin ;  nor  had  any  been  apparently  less  conscious 
of  a  magnificent  national  vocation.  Her  rulers,  themselves 
eschewing  sentimental  considerations,  had  seldom  tried  to 
awaken  these  in  the  minds  of  the  people,  or  to  turn  them 
to  account  where  they  existed.  When  their  own  interests 
coincided  with  those  of  Germany  at  large,  it  was  well : 
but  they  were  not  accustomed  to  proclaim  themselves  her 
champions,  or  the  apostles  of  her  national  regeneration. 
Nevertheless  it  had  for  a  long  time  been  evident  that  if  a 
political  regeneration  was  to  be  brought  about  by  force,  it 
was  from  Prussia  alone  of  the  existing  principalities  that 
anything  could  be  hoped,  since  she  alone  united  the  char- 
acter, the  traditions,  and  the  material  power  that  were 
needed  to  lead  the  country.  Ever  since  the  Reformation 
the  policy  of  the  Hapsburg  princes  had  been  regarded  with 


THE   NEW   GERMAN    EMPIRE  499 

aversion  by  the  more  intelligent  and  progressive  part  of  CHAP. 
the  nation ;  while  Prussia,  recognized  from  the  days  of  the  XXIV- 
Great  Elector  as  the  leading  Protestant  power,  had  become 
the  representative  of  intellectual  liberality  and  enlighten- 
ment.    In  recent   times  she   had,  by  the  foundation  and   Causes  of  her 
wise  encouragement  of  the  two  great  universities  of  Berlin  success- 

0  {  Services 

and  Bonn,  conferred  eminent  benefits  on  German  learning  rendered  by 

and  science,  and  gained  a  corresponding   hold  upon  the  Prussia. 

respect  of  the  educated  classes.     If  the  Prussians  were  in 

some  respects  less  richly  gifted  than  those  of  the  middle 

and  southern  states,  they  possessed  a  practical  energy  and 

decision  in  which  the  latter  were  sometimes  deficient ;  they 

acted  while  the  others  speculated  and  waited.     Prussia  had 

given  the  first   example    in  Germany  of   a  well-governed 

modern  state,  instinct  with    life,  efficient  in  its  working; 

and  in  creating  it  she  was  rendering  an  invaluable  service 

to   the  German    people.     For   this   state,  being  a  strong 

reality,  which  had  stood   the  test  of  adversity  and   been 

matured    by   experience,    whose   well-knit    administrative 

organization   commanded  the  respect,  if   not   always   the 

affection,  of  its  subjects,  was  found  able  to  expand  itself, 

so  as  to  embrace  the  other  populations  and  territories  which 

from  time  to  time  were  added  to  it.     And  it  expanded,  not 

only,  as  Austria  had  done  in  earlier  centuries,  towards  the 

east,  among  races  alien  in  blood  and  speech,  some  of  whom 

have  remained  unfriendly,  but  also  and  chiefly  westwards, 

over  districts  whose  inhabitants,  being  themselves  Germans, 

were  rapidly  fused  and  became  not  less  patriotically-minded 

than  those  of  the  Mark  of  Brandenburg  itself.     After  the 

fall  of  Napoleon  it  acquired  and  assimilated  a  large  and 

rich  dominion  in  the  Rhineland  and  Westphalia;  in  1866 

it  was  enlarged  by  other  territories  hardly  less  important, 

while  at  the  same  time  its  military,  and  (to  a  great  extent) 

its  financial  system,  were  applied  to  North  German  prin- 


5oo 


THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP. 
XXIV. 


It  would  not 
have  suc- 
ceeded with- 
out the  help 
ofthe 
theorists. 


In  what  sense 
does  the  new 
Empire  re- 
present the 

old  one  T 


cipalities.  Thus  the  difficulty  of  creating  a  state  de  novo 
was  avoided  by  the  extension  of  the  existing  state ;  and  if 
Germany,  as  idealistic  politicians  complain,  has  in  a  certain 
sense  been  turned  into  a  larger  Prussia,  so  too  in  no  less 
measure  is  Prussia  herself  permeated  by  the  spirit  of 
Germany  as  a  whole. 

Looking  therefore  to  the  form  which  the  political  re- 
construction of  Germany  has  taken,  this  reconstruction 
may  fairly  be  said  to  be  Prussia's  work.  But  that  work 
could  never  have  been  accomplished  without  the  efforts 
of  those  very  '  sentimental '  or  '  romantic  '  politicians  who 
found  themselves  first  ridiculed  as  visionaries  or  persecuted 
as  agitators,  and  then  pushed  aside  when  the  moment 
for  action  came.  For  it  was  they  who  prepared  the 
feelings  of  the  nation  for  this  revolution,  and  who  raised 
to  the  height  of  a  national  movement,  justified  by  the 
popular  will,  what  would  otherwise  have  been  a  career 
of  violent  self-aggrandizement.  It  was  with  Germany 
as  with  Italy,  where  the  work  of  Cavour,  the  practical 
statesman,  could  never  have  been  accomplished  without 
the  previous  labours  of  Mazzini,  the  prophet  and  moral 
reformer  who  fired  the  hearts  of  his  countrymen. 

It  is  often  asked  how  far  the  new  German  Empire  can 
be  deemed  to  be  the  successor  and  representative  of  the 
ancient  Holy  Empire  as  it  stood  from  A.D.  800  till 
A.D.  1806.  Those  who  have  followed  the  events  re- 
counted and  grasped  the  theory  set  forth  in  the  preced- 
ing chapters  will  have  no  difficulty  in  answering  this 
question.  The  new  creation  of  1866-1871  has  never  claimed 
to  have  inherited  the  legal  status  of  the  ancient  monarchy 
which  had  expired  sixty  years  previously.  Its  rights  are 
only  such  as  it  has  formally  and  expressly  received  from 
the  constitution  and  the  treaties  which  called  it  into  being. 
And  whoever  looks  above  the  bare  legal  rights  to  the 


THE   NEW   GERMAN   EMPIRE  501 

general  position  and  character  of  the  new  institution  will  CHAP. 
perceive  that  it  could  not  be  a  mere  restoration,  and  that  XXIV- 
if  it  were  it  could  not  be  a  solid  and  durable  state.     Cir- 
cumstances had  so  completely  altered,  that  it  became  neces- 
sary to  set  up  something  which  should  correspond  to  the 
new    conditions    and    embody   the    new   spirit.     So   the 
present  German  Empire,  which  is  a  sort  of  expansion  of 
the  Prussian  Kingdom  to  embrace  all  Germany,  is  hardly 
more  like  the  realm  of   Frederick   Barbarossa   or  Maxi- 
milian than  the  empire  of  Charles  the  Great  was  to  that   Unlike  the 
of  Constantine  or  Theodosius.     The  Holy  Empire  claimed  EmPire°f 

J  r  the  Hohen- 

universal  dominion  because  it  represented  the  unity  of  all  staufen  and 
mankind ;  and  though  these  pretensions  had  become  the  Ha?s~ 
obsolete,  they  were  never  formally  renounced.  It  was 
almost  as  much  an  ecclesiastical  as  a  secular  institution. 
Ecclesiastical  princes  were  among  its  Electors ;  its  head 
must  be  in  communion  with  the  Holy  Roman  Church 
which,  to  the  last,  he  solemnly  bound  himself  to  defend. 
But  the  new  Empire  claims  nothing  outside  Germany  and 
those  colonial  territories  which  Germany  has  recently 
acquired.  It  has  no  official  connection  with  any  church, 
and  its  head  is  in  fact  a  Protestant.  Its  true  historical 
predecessor  might  thus  seem  to  be  that  German  or  East 
Prankish  kingdom  which  Conrad  the  First  and  Henry  the 
Fowler  ruled  before  Otto  the  Great  obtained  the  throne  of 
the  Roman  Empire.  The  memory  of  this  German  king- 
dom was  preserved  by  the  fact  that  for  some  centuries 
Otto's  successors  were  crowned  kings  of  Germany  at 
Aachen  before  they  were  crowned  emperors  at  Rome,  but 
otherwise  the  Kingdom  and  the  Empire  were,  as  has  been 
shewn  in  an  earlier  chapter,  so  welded  together  that  they 
become  at  last  one  entity,  called  in  later  days  the  '  Roman 
Empire  of  the  German  Nation.'  Of  the  two  elements 
whose  long  union  in  one  person  thus  ended  in  a  fusion, 


502 


THE    HOLY    ROMAN   EMPIRE 


CHAP. 
XXIV. 


Yet  it  repre- 
sents the 
unity  of  the 
nation. 


the  new  Empire  represents  one  element  only,  that  German 
royalty  which  Otto  held  before  his  fateful  journey  to 
Rome.  So  historic  sentiment  may  imagine  the  present 
Empire  to  be  such  a  kingdom  as  that  of  Otto  would  have 
been  had  it,  remaining  purely  German,  been  extended  to 
include  all  the  regions  which  the  Germans  now  inhabit 
from  the  Meuse  to  the  Vistula,  and  may  figure  to  itself  the 
Emperor  William  of  Hohenzollern  as  the  successor  not  so 
evidently  of  the  Hapsburg  monarchs  of  the  eighteenth 
century  as  of  the  Saxon  King  Henry  I  who  in  an  expedi- 
tion against  the  Wendish  heathen  stormed  their  fort  of 
Brannibor,  and  there,  to  guard  his  north-eastern  frontier, 
laid  the  foundations  of  that  Mark  of  Brandenburg  which 
has  grown  into  the  Prussian  monarchy. 

If  therefore  we  regard  either  the  Germanic  nation  as  it 
was  before  it  entangled  itself  with  Italy  and  Rome,  or  the 
Germanic  nation  as  it  was  when  after  the  days  of  Charles 
the  Fifth  Italy  and  Rome  had  been  lost  to  it,  but  before  it 
had  been  cleft  in  twain  by  the  Treaty  of  Westphalia,  we 
may  call  the  new  Empire  the  legitimate  representative  of 
the  unity  of  the  nation  as  embodied  in  its  monarchy.  It 
is  a  militant  monarchy,  as  were  the  monarchies  of  Charles 
and  Otto.  It  is  a  national  monarchy,  for  it  includes  all 
Germans  except  those  who  live  under  the  sceptre  of  the 
Hapsburgs,  those  who  in  the  Baltic  provinces  of  Russia 
are  forced  to  obey  an  alien  and  ill-beloved  Power,  and 
those  more  fortunate  Germans  who  in  the  northern  and 
eastern  cantons  of  Switzerland  have  given  to  Europe  an 
admirable  example  of  ordered  freedom.  For  the  chief  of 
this  monarchy  the  imperial  name  has  been  revived,  both  on 
account  of  its  venerable  associations  and  because  it  serves 
to  express,  as  it  did  in  the  last  few  centuries  of  its  life,  the 
titular  superiority  of  the  head  of  a  federal  state  over 
the  kings,  grand  dukes,  and  other  princes  who  compose 


THE   NEW   GERMAN   EMPIRE  503 

the  Germanic  body.     In   this   respect  it   partially  repro-  CHAP. 
duces  the  relation  which  the  Emperors  of  the  seventeenth  XXIV< 
and  eighteenth  centuries  bore  to  the  electors  of  that  time. 
To  the  earlier  Middle  Ages,  the  idea  of  an  emperor  of  a 
local   area,  whether  great  or  small,  was  no  doubt  repug- 
nant,   for    mediaeval    doctrine   could   imagine    only   one 
Emperor,  lord  of  all  Christians,  just  as  it  could  recognize 
only  one  spiritual  head  of  the  Catholic  Church.     It  is  per- 
haps some  lingering  sense  of  this  feeling,  as  well  as  a  wish 
not  to  infringe  on  the  territorial  rights  of  the  heads  of  the 
several  States,  that  has  caused  the  official  style  of  the  Title  is 
sovereign  to  be  '  German  Emperor,'  that  is,  Emperor  in  '  German^ 
Germany,  or  Emperor  of  German  race,  not  '  Emperor  of  n™t  * 
Germany.'6     The  Germans   have   indeed   had   reason  to  'Emperor of 
regret  the  influence  of  the  ancient  title,  for  it  was  through   ( 
the  efforts  to  maintain  the  commanding  place  in  Europe 
which  this  title  carried  with  it  that  their  sovereigns  were 
distracted  from  the  duties  they  owed  to  their  own  people, 
and  that  princes  sprang  up  who  wrested  from  the  crown 
nearly  all  the  authority  which  had   once  belonged  to   it. 
But  if  in  this  the  influence  of  that  great  shadow  of  the  past 
be  thought  pernicious,  let  it   be  therewithal  remembered 
that  to  the  ancient  Empire  is  in  large  measure  due  this 
latest  revival  of  national  existence.     It  was  the  tradition 
of  a  glorious  past  when  Germany  led  the  world  that  made 

e  The  Emperor  Frederick  mentions  in  the  fragments  of  his  Diary  that  have 
been  made  public  (Bismarck  disputed  the  authenticity  of  part  of  them)  that 
this  motive  was  present  to  the  mind  of  those  who  called  the  new  Empire  into 
being.  Bismarck  says  {Reflections  and  Reminiscences,  ch.  xxiii)  that  when 
King  William  consented  to  change  his  title,  he  preferred  that  of  '  Emperor  of 
Germany,'  and  was  with  difficulty  driven  to  consent  to  '  German  Emperor,' 
which  Bismarck  urged  because  it  spared  the  susceptibilities  of  the  German 
potentates.  The  Crown  Prince  Frederick  had  at  first  desired  'King  of  Ger- 
many,' because  he  thought  the  restoration  of  the  Roman  Empire  by  Charles 
the  Great  a  misfortune  for  the  nation. 


504  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

CHAP.  the  Germans  again  a  united  people,  the  central  power  of 

XXIV*  continental  Europe.     And  though  the  deep-rooted  Prussian 

sentiment  of  King  William  I  was  at  first  averse  to  the 
adoption  of  that  historic  style  which  commended  itself  to 
the  imagination  of  his  son  (afterwards  the  Emperor  Fred- 
erick), the  name  of  Emperor  has  served  both  to  reconcile 
the  greatest  of  the  German  princes  to  the  loss  of  their 
titular  independence  and  to  imprint  more  deeply  upon  the 
mind  of  the  people  the  sense  that  they  are  one  not  only 
in  blood  and  speech,  but  also  in  the  historical  continuity 
of  their  national  life. 

National  The  parallelism  between  the  course  of  events  in  Ger- 

untty  m  Italy  many  an(i  jn  Italy  which  has  several  times  already  been 
many  referred  to  is  strikingly  seen  in  the  events  of  1870.     As 

the  war  of  1866,  in  putting  an  end  to  the  long  dualism 
of  Austria  and  Prussia,  made  a  united  Germany  possible 
and  simultaneously  gave  to  Italy  her  Venetian  provinces, 
so  the  war  of  1870,  while  it  brought  about  the  re-establish- 
ment of  the  Germanic  Empire,  completed  the  unity  of 
Italy  also  by  making  Rome  again  her  possession  and 
her  capital.  The  Popedom  which,  in  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury, inflicted  a  fatal  wound  upon  the  Holy  Empire,  had 
in  modern  times  allied  itself  with  Austria  and  the  petty 
despotisms  of  the  Italian  peninsula,  had  done  its  utmost 
to  check  as  well  the  union  as  the  freedom  of  the  Italian 
people,  and  had  raised  almost  to  the  rank  of  an  article 
of  faith  those  pretensions  to  temporal  sway  which  had 
been  one  cause  of  its  hostility  to  the  mediaeval  Emperors. 
It  now  found  itself  involved  in  the  misfortunes  of  its  old 
ally  France,  and  saw  that  temporal  sway  perish  along  with 
the  triumph  of  its  former  Teutonic  enemies.  The  first 
German  victories  compelled  the  recall  of  the  French 
troops  from  Rome,  and  allowed  the  Italians  to  establish 
themselves  there  ;  a  few  months  later  the  swelling  cur- 


EPILOGUE  505 


rent  of  success  brought  about  the  union  of  North  and  CHAP. 
South  Germany  in  a  single  state.  The  same  great  struggle  XXIV> 
which  restored  political  unity  to  the  one  nation  cemented 
it  in  the  other ;  and  at  the  very  moment  when  the  imperial 
name  was  revived  in  the  Transalpine  countries  the  ancient 
imperial  seat  upon  the  Tiber  became  the  capital  of  an 
Italian  monarchy.  The  two  great  races  whose  national 
life  had  been  sacrificed  to  the  mediaeval  Empire  regained 
it  together,  and  regained  it  by  the  defeat  of  that  Empire's 
ancient  antagonists,  the  ecclesiastical  power  and  the 
monarch  of  France.  The  triumph  of  the  principle  of 
nationality  was  complete.  Old  wrongs  were  redressed ; 
old  problems  solved.  The  world  seemed  to  have  closed 
one  page  in  its  history,  and  men  paused  to  wonder  and 
conjecture  what  the  next  might  have  to  unfold. 


EPILOGUE 

THAT  which  the  next  page  did  unfold  proved  different 
from  what  men  had  expected.  It  was  a  new  Germany, 
it  was  a  new  Italy,  that  had  been  thus  consolidated  into 
new  monarchies.  The  Germany  of  to-day  is  unlike  the 
Germany  of  1830  or  even  the  Germany  of  1860.  Popula- 
tion and  wealth  have  in  many  regions  grown,  and  towns 
have  extended  themselves  with  a  speed  that  reminds  the 
traveller  of  the  cities  of  Western  America.  More  effec- 
tively than  any  other  nation  of  Europe,  the  Germans  have 
turned  to  account  the  advances  made  by  scientific  discov- 
ery. The  industry  of  the  people,  the  abundance  of  miner- 
als in  some  districts,  the  excellence  of  the  railway  system, 
the  efficiency  of  the  administration,  the  admirable  organi- 
zation of  instruction  in  all  grades,  and  not  least  in  the 
sphere  of  theoretical  and  applied  science,  have  led  to  a 


506  THE   HOLY  ROMAN   EMPIRE 

developement  of  manufactures  and  of  commerce  which 
has  been  followed  by  a  correspondingly  marked  devotion 
of  national  thought  and  effort  to  every  form  of  material 
progress.  Projects  of  expansion  beyond  the  seas,  not  so 
much  to  obtain  an  outlet  for  colonization  as  to  secure  new 
markets  for  German  trade  —  projects  in  which  Prussia 
never  indulged,  but  which  seemed  appropriate  to  a  Ger- 
man Empire  —  have  been  carried  out  by  the  acquisition  of 
territories  in  Africa,  China,  and  the  islands  of  the  Pacific. 
Learning  is  still  cultivated,  research  is  still  prosecuted, 
with  unflagging  energy ;  but  philosophy,  poetry,  and  art 
hold  a  less  conspicuous  place  than  they  did  in  the  first  half 
of  the  nineteenth  century. 

Italy  has  advanced  less  rapidly,  because  her  mineral 
resources  are  less  ample,  and  her  people,  who  had  been 
worse  governed  than  the  Germans,  have  had  more  lee- 
way to  make  up.  But  in  Italy  also  political  unification 
has  stimulated  material  progress,  and  material  progress 
has  absorbed  more  and  more  of  the  intelligence  and 
energy  of  the  population  of  the  northern  half  of  the 
peninsula. 

In  both  countries  there  was  a  certain  disappointment 
because  freedom  and  unity  had  not  brought  all  the  peace 
and  contentment  for  which  men  had  hoped  ;  and  many 
thought  that  the  generation  which  had  entered  into  the 
enjoyment  of  freedom  and  unity  stood  on  a  lower  moral 
level  than  the  generation  which  had  toiled  and  fought  for 
those  blessings.  In  both  countries,  while  the  thoughts  of 
the  educated  class  have  been  occupied  with  practical  and 
economic  questions  rather  than  with  political  theories  or 
religious  reforms,  the  masses  of  the  people,  stirred  by  a 
new  antagonism  to  the  wealthier  classes  and  a  new  passion 
for  equality,  have  begun  to  busy  themselves  with  projects 
for  so  transforming  the  structure  of  society  as  to  secure  a 


EPILOGUE  507 


better  distribution,  or  even  perhaps  an  ultimate  extinction, 
of  private  property. 

Such  ideas  and  projects  shew  how  far  the  world  has 
travelled  from  the  days  when  the  American  and  French 
Revolutions  awoke  a  spirit  of  unrest  in  Europe.  So  too 
they  suggest  some  reflections  on  the  change  that  has 
passed  upon  the  beliefs  of  mankind  since  the  days  when 
the  Hoiy  Empire  embodied  its  loftiest  ideal  of  human 
government.  It  is  not  only  a  new  Germany  and  a  new 
Italy  that  we  see,  but  a  new  Europe,  a  Europe  which  in 
the  course  of  the  nineteenth  century  removed  itself  an 
immeasureable  way  from  those  ages  of  faith  and  imagina- 
tion down  which  Caesar  voyaged  in  the  bark  of  Peter. 
The  successor  of  Caesar  is  now  an  Emperor  in  Germany 
only,  as  the  successor  of  Peter  is  obeyed  by  less  than  half 
of  Western  Christendom.  But  even  if  a  universal  mon- 
archy were  now  possible,  it  would  be  a  monarchy  wholly 
unlike  that  which  Dante  held  necessary  to  the  welfare  of 
mankind.  The  conditions  of  man's  life  have  changed,  and 
the  doctrines,  theological  and  political,  on  which  the  Holy 
Empire  rested,  have  vanished  away.  The  mists  of  imagi- 
nation have  rolled  off,  and  the  world  is  now  governed  by 
facts  —  facts  that  stand  out,  hard  and  clear,  in  the  light  of 
common  day. 

In  the  earlier  Middle  Ages  Europe,  still  half -barbarous,  Europe 
was  the  prey  of  violence.     Its  greatest  need  was  Justice,  between 

'  J  A.D.Sooand 

and  a  power  strong  enough  and  pious  enough  to  execute  A  D  I200 
justice,  as  the  minister  of  God.  The  one  force  that  con- 
fronted violence  and  rapacity  was  Religion.  All  had  one 
religion,  and  though  many  by  sinfulness  of  life  belied  their 
faith,  none  doubted  its  truth.  Neither  did  any  one  doubt 
where  the  seat  of  authority  lay.  Rome,  whence  the 
Caesars  had  ruled  the  world,  Rome  where  the  Chief  of 
the  Apostles  had  exercised  the  pastorate  given  him  by 


508  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

God  when  God  walked  the  earth,  was  the  divinely-ap- 
pointed source  of  all  lawful  power.  Whether  that  power 
was  to  be  wielded  by  two  rulers,  each  directly  representing 
the  Almighty,  or  whether  the  secular  monarch  was  to  be 
the  servant  of  the  spiritual  —  this  was  a  question  on  which 
men  were  divided.  But  that  the  power  of  the  secular 
ruler  was  consecrated  by  a  Divine  commission,  and  being 
so  consecrated,  was  appointed  for  all  time  and  for  all  man- 
kind,—  upon  this  they  were  at  one.  It  was  a  small 
Christian  world,  which  reached  only  from  the  Tagus  to 
the  Vistula  :  so  a  universal  monarchy  seemed  less  strange 
then  than  it  does  now.  Nations  were  as  yet  scarcely  con- 
scious of  themselves,  and  the  strife  that  desolated  Europe 
was  more  frequently  within  than  between  its  countries. 
The  disobedience  of  some  rulers  to  the  Emperor  shook 
the  theories  of  those  who  took  dreams  for  realities  hardly 
more  than  did  the  disobedience  of  a  knot  of  heretics  to  the 
Pope. 

It  was  a  Christendom  which  had  one  literature,  written 
in  one  ancient  tongue,  also  the  one  tongue  of  worship,  for 
the  vernaculars  of  France  and  Italy,  of  Spain,  Germany, 
and  England,  were  only  just  beginning  to  grow  into 
cultivated  languages.  Religion,  grounded  on  undisputed 
dogmas,  ruled  the  intellectual  world,  with  Philosophy  and 
Art  for  her  handmaidens.  And,  in  the  name  of  Religion, 
the  Church  held  half  the  wealth  of  every  country  and  ruled 
its  inhabitants  with  a  power  stronger  than  the  sword. 
The  world  might  seem  to  have  passed  into  the  hands  of 
the  Church,  though  in  gaining  the  whole  world,  the  Church 
had  wellnigh  lost  her  own  soul. 

Tke  changes        It  took  centuries  to  break  up  this  vast  solid  fabric  of 
ofrectnt         mediaeval  society  and   mediaeval   doctrine.      The   larger 

centuries.  .  ••  « ~       «  •       • 

kingdoms  were  consolidated  and  the  nations  that  dwelt 
in  them  felt  themselves  to  be  nations.  New  worlds  were 


EPILOGUE  509 

disclosed  beyond  the  ocean,  worlds  which  Rome  had  never 
known ;  and  in  them  there  have  arisen  new  nations,  one 
of  which  is  mightier  than  any  European  state.  The  liter- 
ary and  philosophical  Renaissance  of  the  fifteenth  century 
passed  into  the  religious  Reformation  of  the  sixteenth, 
and  out  of  the  two  movements  arose  the  political  Revolu- 
tion which  began  in  England  in  the  seventeenth  century, 
convulsed  France  in  the  eighteenth,  reached  Italy  and 
Germany  in  the  nineteenth.  The  work  of  the  new  ideas 
thus  engendered  has  been  for  the  most  part  destructive. 
The  Church  has  been  rent  into  many  fragments.  For  a 
time  there  seemed  a  prospect  that  the  See  of  Rome  might 
recover  her  old  dominion,  but  that  prospect  has  now  grown 
so  faint  that  even  the  controversy  regarding  her  claims  is 
languidly  maintained.  For  nearly  three  centuries  she 
retained  her  wealth  and  power  in  the  countries  that  were 
still  loyal,  but  now  wealth  and  legal  power  have  almost 
gone  :  monasteries  have  been  suppressed,  bishops  stripped 
of  their  estates  :  it  is  everywhere  a  secular  world. 

Christianity  has  overspread  the  whole  earth ;  and  States 
calling  themselves  Christian  are  now  masters  of  the  Mus- 
lim and  the  heathen.  But  it  is  what  would  have  been 
deemed  by  St.  Bernard  or  by  Dante  a  disintegrated  and 
attenuated  Christianity.  Religion  holds  no  such  place  of 
pride  as  she  once  held.  Even  in  countries  which  still 
maintain  a  church  established  by  law  ecclesiastics  are 
jealously  excluded  from  mundane  affairs.  Nowhere,  out- 
side Russia  and  the  most  backward  of  the  Spanish- 
American  republics,  does  the  State  recognize  the  duty  of 
protecting  and  propagating  one  form  of  faith.  Theology 
occupies  itself  but  little  with  the  old  questions  regarding 
the  nature  of  Christ  and  the  relation  of  the  Divine  will  to 
the  human.  She  asks,  What  is  the  relation  of  God  to 
Nature,  and  what  is  the  evidence  of  the  revelation  of  God 


510  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

to  man  ?  Philosophy  does  not  inquire  how  justice  is  to  be 
established,  nor  what  is  the  true  seat  and  origin  of  civil 
authority :  she  accepts  political  power  as  being  the  result 
of  actual  forces,  the  will  or  the  acquiescence  of  the  strong- 
est elements  in  the  community ;  and  sees  no  more  sacred- 
ness  in  the  head  of  a  State  than  in  the  chairman  of  a 
commercial  company.  Order,  for  which  the  Middle  Ages 
sighed,  has  been  established;  and  if  justice  is  still  imper- 
fect, this  is  due,  not  to  the  impunity  of  law-breakers,  but 
to  faults  in  the  law  itself,  springing  perhaps  from  the 
selfishness  of  the  classes  that  have  shaped  it.  Order, 
whose  name  had  been  often  discredited  by  being  used  as  a 
cloak  for  tyranny,  ceased  long  ago  to  be  the  great  aim  of 
progressive  minds  :  it  was  Liberty  that  they  set  before 
themselves,  believing  that  all  other  blessings  would  follow 
in  her  train.  The  subject  has  now  become  the  citizen. 
He  holds  himself  to  have  as  much  right  to  govern  as  he 
has  duty  to  obey,  and  the  obedience  he  owes  is  deemed 
to  be  due  not  to  the  representative  of  God  but  to  the 
transient  depositary  of  an  authority  that  issues  from 
himself. 

ideah  and          Yet  this  ideal  of  individual  freedom  which  seemed  a  cen- 
disappomt-      ^          Q  SQ  fujj  Q£  promjse  J-Q  those  who  had  suffered  from 

ments.  J       c 

the  despotism  of  custom  and  tradition,  as  well  as  from  the 
pressure  of  meddlesome  bureaucracies,  has  not  realized  all 
that  was  expected.  Popular  government,  installed  by  the 
votes  of  a  multitude  on  which  the  gift  of  power  was  as- 
sumed to  have  also  bestowed  wisdom,  self-control,  and 
public  spirit,  lost  much  of  its  credit  when  it  was  seen  that 
masses  of  men  were  still  prone  to  be  swayed  by  unreason- 
ing passions  and  racial  animosities,  still  liable  to  fall  under 
the  control  of  wealth  directed  by  astute  self-interest.  The 
hopes  that  illumined  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury have  slowly  paled ;  and  the  nearest  approach  to  a 


EPILOGUE  5 1 1 


scheme  for  the  creation  of  an  ideal  State  which  has  since 
emerged  is  that  which  would  entrust  the  State  with  the 
function  of  superseding  private  property  and  allotting  to 
each  citizen  his  share  of  labour  and  of  the  means  of  sub- 
sistence. Material  interests  are  uppermost  in  the  minds 
of  nations  as  in  those  of  individuals  :  and  the  idealism  of 
this  new  Europe  is,  so  to  speak,  a  material  kind  of  idealism 
when  compared  to  the  old  types  of  perfection  in  Church 
and  State,  as  they  were  set  forth  either  by  the  Catholic 
Church  in  the  days  of  Hildebrand  or  by  religious  reformers 
from  the  days  of  Arnold  of  Brescia  to  those  of  Savonarola 
and  of  Calvin. 

This  may  be  a  passing  phase,  short  in  the  view  of  world- 
history,  the  teachings  of  which  seem  to  shew  that  men  do 
not  for  any  long  time  remain  without  a  consistent  theory 
of  life,  and  a  faith  on  which  to  ground  such  a  theory.  Ages 
of  negation  and  criticism  are  succeeded  by  ages  of  con- 
struction. Filled  with  discordant  schools  of  thought  and 
irreconcileable  schemes  for  social  progress,  permeated  by 
a  scepticism  which  distrusts  all  schemes  equally,  the  world 
may  appear  to  be  waiting  for  some  new  idealistic  system, 
possibly  already  in  the  germ.  The  foundation  of  institu- 
tions that  have  in  the  past  proved  durable  has  been  laid  in 
men's  innermost  convictions,  in  certain  fixed  and  settled 
principles,  lying  so  deep  as  to  be  part  of  themselves,  and 
inwoven  with  their  strongest  emotions,  principles  which 
they  hold  as  self-evident  and  which  bring  the  life  of  each 
into  harmony  with  the  lives  of  others  and  with  the  universe 
in  which  they  are  placed.  These  convictions  are  slow  to 
form  and  slow  to  break  :  it  is  a  work  of  many  generations. 
Seven  centuries  were  needed,  from  St.  Augustine  to  Pope 
Gregory  the  Seventh,  to  create  the  mediaeval  scheme.  It 
lived  for  three  centuries ;  and  nearly  four  centuries  more 
were  needed  to  destroy  the  principles  on  which  it  rested. 


512  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

If  in  the  years  to  come  a  new  body  of  ideas  and  beliefs 
is  by  degrees  built  up  capable  of  satisfying  the  need  men 
have  to  find  a  consecration  for  Power  and  a  tie  which  shall 
bind  them  together  and  represent  the  aspirations  of  collec- 
tive humanity,  the  form  these  beliefs  will  take  must  differ 
widely  in  outward  aspect  from  that  in  which  the  Middle 
Ages  found  satisfaction.  But  it  may  embody  some  portion 
of  that  which  was  the  soul  and  essence  of  the  Holy  Empire 
—  the  love  of  peace,  the  sense  of  the  brotherhood  of  man- 
kind, the  recognition  of  the  sacredness  and  supremacy  of 
the  spiritual  life. 


ADDITIONAL   NOTES 


Note  to  p.  21 

Lact.  Divin.  Instit.  vii.  25 :  '  Etiam  res  ipsa  declarat  lapsum  ruinamque 
rerum  brevi  fore :  nisi  quod  incolumi  urbe  Roma  nihil  istiusmodi  videtur  esse 
metuendum.  At  vero  cum  caput  illud  orbis  occiderit,  et  pi/M^J  esse  coeperit 
quod  Sibyllae  fore  aiunt,  quis  dubitet  venisse  iam  finem  rebus  humanis,  or- 
bique  terrarum  ?  Ilia,  ilia  est  civitas  quae  adhuc  sustentat  omnia,  precan- 
dusque  nobis  et  adorandus  est  Deus  coeli  si  tamen  statuta  eius  et  placita 
differri  possunt,  ne  citius  quam  putemus  tyrannus  ille  abominabilis  venial  qui 
tantum  facinus  moliatur,  ac  lumen  illud  effodiat  cuius  interitu  mundus  ipse 
lapsurus  est.' 

Cf.  Tertull.  Apolog,  cap.  xxxii :  '  Est  et  alia  maior  necessitas  nobis  orandi 
pro  imperatoribus,  etiam  pro  omni  statu  imperil  rebusque  Romanis,  qui  vim 
maximam  universe  orbi  imminentem  ipsamque  clausulam  saeculi  acerbitates 
horrendas  comminantem  Romani  imperil  commeatu  scimus  retardari.'  Also 
the  same  writer,  Ad  Scapulam,  cap.  ii :  '  Christianus  sciens  imperatorem  a 
Deo  suo  constitui,  necesse  est  ut  ipsum  diligat  et  revereatur  et  honoret  et  sal- 
vum  velit  cum  toto  Romano  imperio  quousque  saeculum  stabit :  tandiu  enim 
stabit.'  So  too  the  author  —  now  usually  supposed  to  be  Hilary  the  Deacon 
—  of  the  Commentary  on  the  Pauline  Epistles  ascribed  to  St.  Ambrose :  '  Non 
prius  veniet  Dominus  quam  regni  Romani  defectio  fiat,  et  appareat  Antichristus 
qui  interficiet  sanctos,  reddita  Romanis  libertate,  sub  suo  tamen  nomine.'  — 
Ad.  II  Thess.  ii.  4,  7. 

II 

Note  to  p.  28 

Theodorich  (GevS^pixos,  Thiodorich  ;  in  Old  German,  Dietrich;  in  Dutch, 
Dirk  ;  in  French,  Thierry)  seems  to  have  resided  usually  at  Ravenna,  where 
he  died  and  was  buried  ;  a  remarkable  building  which  tradition  points  out  as 
his  tomb,  but  which  cannot  belong  to  his  time,  stands  a  little  way  out  of  the 
town,  near  the  railway  station.  The  porphyry  sarcophagus,  in  which  his  body 
is  supposed  to  have  lain,  may  be  seen  built  up  into  the  wall  of  the  building 
called  his  palace,  situated  close  to  the  church  of  Sant'  Apollinare  in  Urbe,  and 
nut  far  from  the  tomb  of  Dante.  There  is  no  authority  for  attributing  this 
2L  513 


514  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

building  to  Ostrogothic  times  ;  it  is  very  different  from  the  representation  of 
Theodorich's  palace  which  we  have  in  the  contemporary  mosaics  of  this 
church  of  Sant'  Apollinare  at  Ravenna. 

In  the  German  legends,  however,  —  legends  which  doubtless  led  to  his  be- 
ing commemorated  as  a  national  hero  by  the  superb  figure  guarding  the  tomb 
of  the  Emperor  Maximilian  at  Innsbruck,  —  Theodorich  is  always  the  prince  of 
Verona  (Dietrich  von  Berne),  probably  because  that  city  was  better  known 
to  the  Teutonic  nations,  and  because  it  was  thither  that  he  moved  his  court 
when  Transalpine  affairs  required  his  attention.  His  castle  there  stood  in  the 
old  town  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Adige,  on  the  height  now  occupied  by  the 
citadel ;  it  is  doubtful  whether  any  traces  of  it  remain,  for  the  solid  founda- 
tions which  we  now  see  may  have  belonged  to  the  fortress  erected  by  Gian 
Galeazzo  Visconti  in  the  fourteenth  century. 

Ill 

Note  to  p.  38 

A  singular  account  of  the  origin  of  the  separation  of  the  Greeks  from  the 
Latins  occurs  in  the  treatise  of  Landulfus  de  Columna  (Landolfo  Colonna),  De 
translatione  Imperil  Romani  (circa  1320).  'The  tyranny  of  Heraclius,'  says 
he,  '  provoked  a  revolt  of  the  Eastern  nations.  They  could  not  be  reduced, 
because  the  Greeks  at  the  same  time  began  to  disobey  the  Roman  Pontiff, 
receding,  like  Jeroboam,  from  the  true  faith.  Others  among  these  schis- 
matics [apparently  with  the  view  of  strengthening  their  political  revolt]  car- 
ried their  heresy  further  and  founded  Mohammedanism.'  Similarly,  Marsilius 
of  Padua  in  his  revised  version  of  Colonna's  book  says  that  Mohammed,  '  a 
rich  Persian,'  invented  his  religion  to  keep  the  East  from  returning  to  alle- 
giance to  Rome. 

It  is  worth  remarking  that  few,  if  any,  of  the  earlier  historians  (from  the 
tenth  to  the  fifteenth  century)  refer  to  the  Emperors  of  the  West  from  Con- 
stantine  to  Romulus  Augustulus :  the  transference  of  the  seat  of  Empire  was 
deemed  to  have  been  effected  by  Constantine,  and  the  very  existence  of  this 
Western  line  seems  to  have  been  even  in  the  eighth  or  ninth  century  alto- 
gether forgotten.  The  first  mediaeval  writer  who  mentions  Romulus  Augus 
tulus  as  the  last  sovereign  reigning  at  Rome  is,  according  to  Dollinger  {Das 
Kaistrthum  Karls  des  Grossen  und  seiner  Nachfolger,  p.  Ill),  Matteo  Pal- 
mieri,  who  wrote  about  A.D.  1440. 

IV 
Note  to  p.  43  and  to  p.  IOI 

The  original  forgery  (or  rather  the  extracts  which  Gratian  gives  from  it) 
may  be  read  in  the  Corpus  luris  Canonici,  Dist.  xcvi.  cc.  13,  14:  'Et  sicut 


ADDITIONAL  NOTES  515 

nostram  terrenam  imperialem  potentiam,  sic  sacrosanctam  Romanam  ecclesiam 
decrevimus  veneranter  honorari,  et  amplius  quam  nostrum  imperium  et  ter- 
renum  thronum  sedem  beati  Petri  gloriose  exaltari,  tribuentes  ei  potestatem 
et  gloriae  dignitatem  atque  vigorem  et  honorificentiam  imperialem.  .  .  . 
Beato  Sylvestro  patri  nostro  summo  pontifici  et  universal!  urbis  Romae  papae, 
et  omnibus  eius  successoribus  pontificibus,  qui  usque  in  finem  mundi  in  sede 
beati  Petri  erunt  sessuri,  de  praesenti  contradimus  palatium  imperii  nostri 
Lateranense,  deinde  diadema,  videlicet  coronam  capitis  nostri,  simulque  phry- 
gium,  necnon  et  superhumerale,  verum  etiam  et  chlamydem  purpuream  et 
tunicam  coccineam,  et  omnia  imperialia  indumenta,  sed  et  dignitatem  im- 
perialem praesidentium  equitum,  conferentes  etiam  et  imperialia  sceptra, 
simulque  cuncta  signa  atque  banda  et  diversa  ornamenta  imperialia  et  omnem 
processionem  imperialis  culminis  et  gloriam  potestatis  nostrae.  ...  Et  sicut 
imperialis  militia  ornatur  ita  et  clerum  sanctae  Romanae  ecclesiae  ornari  de- 
cernimus.  .  .  .  Unde  et  pontificalis  apex  non  vilescat  sed  magis  quam  terreni 
imperii  dignitas  gloria  et  potentia  decoretur,  ecce  tarn  palatium  nostrum  quam 
Romanam  urbem  et  omnes  Italiae  seu  occidentalium  regionum  provincias 
loca  et  civitates  beatissimo  papae  Sylvestro  universali  papae  contradimus 
atque  relinquimus.  .  .  .  Ubi  enim  principatus  sacerdotum  et  Christianae  re- 
ligionis  caput  ab  imperatore  coelesti  constitutum  est,  iustum  non  est  ut  illic 
imperator  terrenus  habeat  potestatem.' 

The  practice  of  kissing  the  Pope's  foot  was  adopted  by  the  Papal  in  imita- 
tion of  the  ancient  imperial  court.  It  was  afterwards  revived  by  the  Romano- 
Germanic  Emperors. 

The  spuriousness  of  the  Donation  of  Constantine  was  proved  by  Laurentius 
Valla  in  1440:  Nicholas  of  Cues  (1401-1464),  afterwards  Cardinal,  also 
recognizes  its  falsity. 


Note  to  p.  49 

The  primitive  custom  was  for  the  bishop  to  sit  in  the  centre  of  the  apse,  at 
the  central  point  of  the  east  end  of  the  church  (or,  as  it  would  be  more  cor- 
rect to  say,  the  end  furthest  from  the  great  door,  for  the  earliest  churches  do 
not  always  run  east  and  west),  just  as  the  judge  had  done  in  those  law  courts 
on  the  model  of  which  the  first  basilicas  were  constructed.  This  arrangement 
may  still  be  seen  in  some  of  the  churches  of  Rome,  as  well  as  elsewhere  in 
Italy;  nowhere  better  than  in  the  churches  of  Ravenna,  particularly  the  beau- 
tiful one  of  Sant'  Apollinare  in  Classe,  and  in  the  very  ancient  cathedral  of 
Torcello,  in  the  lagoons  north-east  of  Venice. 

On  the  episcopal  chair  of  the  Pope  were  represented  the  labours  of  Her- 
cules and  the  signs  of  the  zodiac.  It  is  believed  at  Rome  to  be  the  veritable 
chair  of  the  Apostle  himself;  and  whatever  may  be  thought  of  such  an  anti- 


516  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

quity  as  this,  it  can  be  satisfactorily  traced  back  to  the  third  or  fourth  century 
of  Christianity.     (The  story  that  it  is  inscribed  with  verses  from  the  Koran  is, 

1  believe,  without  foundation.)     It  is  of  oak  and  acacia  wood,  and  is  now 
enclosed  in  a  gorgeous  casing  of  bronze,  and  placed  aloft  at  the  eastern  ex- 
tremity of  St.  Peter's,  just  over  the  spot  where  a  bishop's  chair  would  in  the 
old  arrangement  of  the  basilica  have  stood.    The  Roman  sarcophagus  in 
which  the  body  of  Charles  himself  lay,  bears  reliefs  of  the  rape  of  Proserpine. 
It  may  still  be  seen  in  the  gallery  of  the  basilica  at  Aachen. 

VI 

Note  to  p.  69 

The  notion  that  once  prevailed  that  the  Irminsul  was  the  '  pillar  of  Her- 
mann,' set  up  on  the  spot  of  the  defeat  of  Varus,  is,  however,  now  generally 
discredited.  Some  German  antiquaries  take  the  pillar  to  be  a  rude  figure  of 
the  native  god  or  hero  Irmin,  who,  as  Grimm  {Deutsche  Mythologie,  i.  325) 
thinks,  may  be  an  eponym  of  the  Herminones,  and  was  probably  worshipped 
by  the  Saxons  as  a  warlike  representation  of  Wodan.  The  omission  of  their 
ancestors  to  commemorate  the  victory  that  saved  them  from  Rome  has  been 
at  last  supplied  by  the  modern  Germans,  who  in  1875  se^  UP  a  colossal  statue 
of  Arminius  or  Hermann  in  the  Teutoburger  Wald,  not  far  from  the  reputed 
scene  of  the  battle.  He  has  in  fact  become  the  earliest  national  hero.  A 
rude  ditty,  apparently  referring  to  the  destruction  of  the  pillar  by  Charles, 
still  lives  in  the  memory  of  the  Westphalians  round  Paderborn,  and  runs 
thus:  — 

'  Hermen  sla  dermen 

Sla  pipen,  sla  trummen 

De  Kaiser  wil  kummen 

Met  hammer  un  stangen 

Wil  Hermen  uphangen.' 

Mommsen  {Die  Oertlichkeit  der  Varusschlachf)  places  the  scene  of  the  battle 
eight  or  ten  miles  north  of  Osnabriick,  near  a  spot  called  Barenau. 

[The  name  of  the  deity  is  preserved  in  England  in  the  Ermine  Street 
(Eormenstrsete),  an  ancient  road  which  ran  north  from  the  Thames  Valley 
into  Lincolnshire.] 

VII 

Note  to  p.  112 

The  abbot  Engelbert  {De  Orttt  Progressu  et  Fine  Imperii  Romani)  quotes 
Origen  and  Jerome  to  this  effect,  and  proceeds  himself  to  explain,  from 

2  Thess.  ii.  3-9,  how  the  falling  away  will  precede  the  coming  of  Antichrist. 
There  will  be  a  triple  '  discessio,'  of  the  kingdoms  of  the  earth  from  the 


ADDITIONAL  NOTES  517 

Roman  Empire,  of  the  Church  from  the  Apostolic  See,  of  the  faithful  from 
the  faith.  Of  these,  the  first  causes  the  second;  the  temporal  sword  to  pun- 
ish heretics  and  schismatics  being  no  longer  ready  to  work  the  will  of  the 
rulers  of  the  Church. 

St.  Thomas  Aquinas  deals  with  the  same  prophecy  in  a  remarkable  way, 
shewing  that  the  falling  away  is  to  be  understood  as  referring  to  a  discessio 
from  the  spiritual  power.  '  Dicendum  quod  nondum  cessavit,  sed  est  com- 
mutatum  de  temporali  in  spirituale,  ut  dicit  Leo  Papa  in  sermone  de  Apos- 
tolis :  et  ideo  discessio  a  Romano  imperio  debet  intelligi  non  solum  a 
temporali  sed  etiam  a  spirituali,  scilicet  a  fide  catholica  Romanae  Ecclesiae. 
Est  autem  hoc  conveniens  signum,  nam  Christus  venit  quando  Romanum 
imperium  omnibus  dominabatur :  ita  e  contra  signum  adventus  Antichrist! 
est  discessio  ab  eo.'  —  Comment,  ad  2  Thess.  ii. 

A  full  statement  of  the  views  that  prevailed  in  the  earlier  Middle  Age  re- 
garding Antichrist  —  as  well  as  of  the  singular  prophecy  of  the  Prankish 
Emperor  who  shall  appear  in  the  latter  days,  conquer  the  world,  and  then 
going  to  Jerusalem  shall  lay  down  his  crown  on  the  Mount  of  Olives  and 
deliver  over  the  kingdom  to  Christ  —  may  be  found  in  the  little  treatise,  Vita 
Antichristi,  which  Adso,  monk  and  afterwards  abbot  of  Moutier-en-Der, 
compiled  (circa  950)  for  the  information  of  Queen  Gerberga,  wife  of  Louis 
d'Outremer.  Antichrist  is  to  be  born  a  Jew  of  the  tribe  of  Dan  (Gen.  xlix. 
17),  'non  de  episcopo  et  monacha,  sicut  alii  delirando  dogmatizant,  sed  de 
immundissima  meretrice  et  crudelissimo  nebulone.  Totus  in  peccato  con- 
cipietur,  in  peccato  generabitur,  in  peccato  nascetur.'  His  birthplace  is 
Babylon :  he  is  to  be  brought  up  in  Bethsaida  and  Chorazin. 

Adso's  book  may  be  found  printed  in  Migne,  t.  ci.  p.  1290.  As  to  the 
notions  current  regarding  Antichrist  (and  their  supposed  derivation  from 
earlier  Jewish  notions)  see  Bousset's  book  on  the  Antichrist  Legend,  1895 
(English  translation  by  A.  H.  Keene,  1896). 

No  name  has  been  more  frequently  fitted  to  different  figures  than  this. 
Popes  as  well  as  Emperors  have  received  it.  Everybody  in  turn  has  been 
Antichrist  from  the  Emperor  Nero  to  President  Loubet. 

VIII 

Note  to  p.  113 

A  prayer  which  still  keeps  its  place  in  the  office  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  for  Good  Friday,  though  it  is  no  longer  actually  in  use,  expresses  the 
ancient  ideas :  '  Oremus  pro  Christianissimo  Imperatore  nostro  N.  ut  Deus  et 
Dominus  noster  subditas  illi  faciat  omnes  barbaras  nationes  ad  nostram  per- 
petuam  pacem.  .  .  .  Omnipotens  sempiterne  Deus  respice  ad  Romanum 
imperium  ut  gentes  quae  in  sua  feritate  confidunt  potentiae  Tuae  dextera 
comprimantur.' 


518  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

IX 
Note  to  p.  117 

The  ideas  expressed  in  the  mosaic  of  the  Lateran  triclinium  were  in  sub- 
stance conveyed  by  Pope  Hadrian  I,  some  twenty-three  years  before,  when 
writing  of  Charles  as  representative  of  Constantine :  '  Et  sicut  temporibus  Beati 
Sylvestri,  Romani  pontificis,  a  sanctae  recordationis  piissimo  Constantino 
magno  imperatore,  per  eius  largitatem  sancta  Dei  catholica  et  apostolica 
Romana  ecclesia  elevata  atque  exaltata  est,  et  potestatem  in  his  Hesperiae 
partibus  largiri  dignatus  est,  ita  et  in  his  vestris  felicissimis  temporibus  atque 
nostris,  sancta  Dei  ecclesia,  id  est,  beati  Petri  apostoli,  germinet  atque  ex- 
sultet,  ut  omnes  gentes  quae  haec  audierint  edicere  valeant,  "  Domine  salvum 
fac  regem,  et  exaudi  nos  in  die  in  qua  invocaverimus  te";  quia  ecce  novus 
Christianissimus  Dei  Constantinus  imperator  his  temporibus  surrexit,  per 
quem  omnia  Deus  sanctae  suae  ecclesiae  beati  apostolorum  principis  Petri 
largiri  dignatus  est.'  —  Letter  XLIX  of  Cod.  Carol.,  A.D.  777  (in  Mur.  Scrip- 
tores  Rerum  Italicarum,  iii.  part  ii.  195). 

This  letter  is  memorable  as  containing  the  first  allusion,  or  what  seems  an 
allusion,  to  Constantine's  Donation.  The  document  may  not  yet  have  been 
forged,  but  the  legend  doubtless  existed,  and  the  forger  may  well  have 
believed  it. 


Note  to  p.  138 

The  fevers  which  prevailed  in  and  near  Rome  during  the  summer  and 
autumn  were  one  of  the  chief  causes  which  baffled  the  efforts  of  the  Germanic 
Emperors  from  the  days  of  Otto  the  Great  to  those  of  Lewis  IV. 

St.  Peter  Damiani  had,  in  the  eleventh  century,  noted  this  when  he  wrote 
the  lines  — 

'  Roma  vorax  hominum  domat  ardua  colla  virorum, 
Roma  ferax  febrium  necis  est  uberrima  frugum, 
Romanae  febres  stabili  sunt  iure  fideles.' 

What  we  popularly  call '  Roman '  or  malarial  fevers  are  fevers  of  an  inter- 
mittent type,  due,  it  is  supposed,  to  haematozoa,  spread  by  a  mosquito;  and 
for  these  intermittent  fevers  ancient  and  mediaeval  medicine  had  no  remedy. 
Had  quinine  been  known,  the  history  of  those  times  might  have  been  very 
different,  and  many  a  precious  life  —  Dante's,  for  instance  —  might  have  been 
prolonged.  But  cinchona,  or,  as  it  used  to  be  called,  Peruvian  bark  or  Jesuits' 
bark,  was  not  introduced  into  Europe  from  South  America  till  between  1632 
and  1639.  Dr.  Norman  Moore,  to  whom  I  owe  this  date,  tells  me  that  the 


ADDITIONAL  NOTES  519 

maladies  from  which  armies  most  usually  suffer  are  dysentery  and  enteric 
fever :  it  may  be  chiefly  from  these  that  the  German  armies  perished,  but  the 
prevalence  of  intermittent  fevers  would  weaken  the  troops  and  predispose 
them  to  other  diseases. 

XI 

Note  to  p.  161 

Pope  Gelasius  I  wrote  to  the  Emperor  Anastasius :  '  Duo  sunt,  Imperator 
Auguste,  quibus  principaliter  mundus  hie  regitur,  auctoritas  sacrata  ponti- 
ficum  et  regalis  potestas.  In  quibus  tanto  gravius  est  pondus  sacerdotum 
quanto  etiam  pro  ipsis  regibus  hominum  in  divino  reddituri  sunt  examine 
rationem.  Nosti  enim,  fili  clementissime,  quod  licet  praesideas  humano 
generi  dignitate,  rerum  tamen  praesulibus  divinarum  devotus  colla  submittis, 
atque  ab  eis  causas  tuae  salutis  expetis,  inque  sumendis  coelestibus  sacramen- 
tis  eisque  (ut  competit)  disponendis,  subdi  te  debere  cognoscis  religionis 
ordine  potius  quam  praeesse,  itaque  inter  haec  ex  illorum  te  pendere  iudicio, 
non  illos  ad  tuam  velle  redigi  voluntatem.'  —  In  Migne,  vol.  lix.  ep.  viii.  p.  42. 
(Cf.  Corpus  luris  Civilis,  Nov.  VI,  principle?) 

These  views  of  Pope  Gelasius  seem  to  have  exerted  much  influence  in  the 
earlier  Middle  Ages.  They  are  moderately  expressed,  and  admit  the  rights 
of  the  Emperor  in  secular  affairs,  yet  in  principle  they  go  far.  When  we 
reach  Gregory  VII's  time  we  find  Alfanus,  archbishop  of  Salerno,  in  a  poem 
addressed  'Ad  Hildebrandum  archidiaconum'1  (Migne,  vol.  cxlvii),  treating 
the  spiritual  power  as  the  successor  and  the  vindicator  of  the  warlike  might 
of  Rome :  — 

'  His  (sc.  artibus)  et  archiapostoli 
Fervido  gladio  Petri 
Frange  robur  et  impetus 
Illius  (sc.  saeva  barbaries)  vetus  ut  iugum 
Usque  sentiat  ultimum 
Quanta  vis  anathematis? 
Quidquid  et  Marius  prius 
Quodque  lulius  egerint 
Maxima  nece  militum 
Voce  tu  modica  facis. 

Roma  quid  Scipionibus 
Caeterisque  Quiritibus 
Debuit  mage  quam  tibi 
Cuius  est  studiis  suae 
Nacta  via  potentiae?' 

'  Saeva  barbaries '  seems  to  mean  the  Germans, 


520  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

And  in  verses  addressed  to  St.  Peter  he  says :  — 

lam  cape  Romanum  consul  Caesarque  senatum 
Ecce  tibi  cunctus  servit  sub  sidere  mundus.' 

But  there  were  in  the  end  of  the  eleventh  century  sound  churchmen  who 
(like  St.  Bernard  afterwards)  held  views  far  more  moderate,  and  desired  to 
restrict  the  See  of  Rome  to  a  purely  spiritual  jurisdiction.  Gregorio  di  Catino 
(in  Chron.  Farfense,  recently  edited  by  Ugo  Balzani)  writes  of  the  Pope, 
'  Ipse  pastor  est  animarum,  ipse  doctor  fidei  electorum,  ipse  caput  omnium 
ecclesiarum,  in  his  tamen  rebus  et  causis  non  quae  sunt  ad  seculum  sed  quae 
ad  Deum,  non  enim  claves  terrae  seu  regni  terrestris  sed  claves  regni  caelorum 
concessit  illi  omnium  Pastor  past  or  um.' 

XII 

Note  to  p.  1 66 

Hohenstaufen  is  a  castle  in  Swabia  (within  what  is  now  the  kingdom  of 
Wiirtemberg),  about  four  miles  from  the  Goppingen  station  of  the  railway 
from  Stuttgart  to  Ulm.  It  stands,  or  rather  stood,  on  the  summit  of  a  steep 
and  lofty  conical  hill  (visible  from  several  points  on  the  line  of  railway), 
commanding  a  boundless  view  over  the  great  limestone  plateau  of  the  Rauhe 
Alp,  the  eastern  declivities  of  the  Schwartzwald,  and  the  bare  and  tedious 
plains  of  western  Bavaria.  Of  the  castle  itself,  destroyed  in  the  Peasants' 
War,  there  remain  only  fragments  of  the  wall-foundations :  in  a  rude  chapel 
lying  on  the  hill  slope  below  are  some  strange  half-obliterated  frescoes :  over 
the  arch  of  the  door  is  inscribed  '  Hie  transibat  Caesar.'  Frederick  Barbarossa 
had  another  famous  palace  at  Kaiserslautern,  a  small  town  in  the  Palatinate, 
on  the  railway  from  Mannheim  to  Treves,  lying  in  a  wide  valley  at  the  western 
foot  of  the  Hardt  mountains.  It  was  destroyed  by  the  French,  and  a  house 
of  correction  has  been  built  upon  its  site  ;  but  in  a  brewery  hard  by  there 
might  be  seen  (in  1863)  some  of  the  huge  low -browed  arches  of  its  lower 
story.  A  third  castle  where  he  sometimes  dwelt,  and  in  the  great  Knights' 
Hall  (Rittersaal)  of  which  was  held  the  famous  Diet  of  1179,  was  at  Geln- 
hausen,  south  of  Fulda.  The  ruins  stand  on  an  isle  in  the  river  Kinzig,  and 
are  very  picturesque,  showing  remains  of  fine  Romanesque  work.  The  castle, 
begun  in  A.D.  1154  and  completed  in  1170,  was  occasionally  inhabited  by  suc- 
ceeding Emperors  down  to  Sigismund.  It  suffered  severely  from  the  Swedes 
in  the  Thirty  Years'  War. 

XIII 
Note  to  p.  222 

Marsilius  was  born  in  or  soon  after  A.D.  1270  of  the  burgher  family  of 
Raimondini  or  Mainardini  in  Padua.  He  was  a  man  of  many  accomplish- 


ADDITIONAL  NOTES  521 

merits  —  John  Villani  calls  him  '  grande  maestro  in  natura  ed  astrologia '  — 
was  in  orders,  though  possibly  he  did  not  go  so  far  as  the  diaconate,  and  at 
one  time  seems  to  have  practised  medicine.  He  was  for  a  while  with  the 
Delia  Scala  in  Verona  (where  he  may  have  met  Dante  Alighieri),  taught  in 
the  University  of  Paris,  whereof  he  was  Rector  in  A.D.  1312,  and  immediately 
after  Lewis  IV  had  been  excommunicated,  departed  suddenly  thence,  and 
with  his  friend  John  of  Jandun  presented  the  Defensor  Pads,  just  then  com- 
posed by  him  with  John's  help,  to  the  Emperor.  Lewis  took  them  both  into 
Italy  with  him,  and  when  he  left  Rome  preferred  John  to  the  see  of  Ferrara, 
which  however  the  latter  seems  not  to  have  lived  to  occupy,  and  Marsilius 
(who  had  been  accused  of  wishing  to  be  Pope)  to  the  archbishopric  of 
Milan.  Marsilius  never  entered  on  that  great  office  (perhaps  fortunately  for 
his  consistency  to  his  principles)  ;  and  we  lose  sight  of  him  after  1328, 
though  he  was  still  living  in  1336.  His  ally,  possibly  his  teacher,  William  of 
Ockham,  seems  not  to  have  returned  to  England  ;  he  died  at  Munich  and  was 
buried  in  the  (now  destroyed)  Franciscan  church  there  in  or  soon  after  1349 
(Reizler,  Literarische  Wider sacher  der  Papste,\>.  126).  How  much  Central 
and  Western  Europe  was  in  those  days  one  intellectual  community  is  well  illus- 
trated by  the  fact  that  the  three  chief  champions  of  the  German  Lewis  IV  in 
his  strife  with  the  Pope  were  the  Italian  Marsilius,  the  Frenchman  John  of 
Jandun,  and  the  Englishman  William  of  Ockham. 

XIV 

Note  to  p.  231 

It  is  a  remarkable  evidence  of  the  decline  of  imperial  power  after  the  death 
of  Frederick  II,  and  of  the  impression  which  that  decline,  coupled  with  the 
failure  of  Rudolf,  Adolf,  and  Albert  to  enter  Italy,  had  made  all  over  Europe, 
that  not  only  the  notion  of  transferring  the  crown  of  the  Empire  to  the  kings 
of  France,  but  also  plans  for  making  France  predominant  in  Italy  and  Rome, 
were  seriously  discussed  at  the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth  century.  One 
such  plan  may  be  found  fully  stated  in  the  treatise  De  Recuperation  Terrae 
Sanctae  of  Peter  Du  Bois  —  a  man  full  of  bold  schemes  and  novel  ideas  — 
who  was  a  royal  advocate  living  at  Coutances  in  Normandy,  and  a  warm  par- 
tizan  of  Philip  IV  in  his  quarrel  with  Pope  Boniface  VIII.  He  proposes  that 
the  Pope  should  transfer  all  his  temporal  and  feudal  rights  to  the  king  of 
France  and  should  himself  come  to  live  in  France,  the  king  of  France  becom- 
ing Senator  of  Rome.  The  Pope  was  to  have  a  fixed  pensio  and  the  Emperor 
(Albert  I)  was  to  be  appeased  by  having  the  imperial  title  made  hereditary  in 
his  family,  some  compensation  being  given  to  the  Germanic  electors.  France 
was  at  this  time  a  kingdom  practically  stronger  than  the  Empire  ;  and 
after  A.D.  1305  she  could  generally  count  on  the  Papacy:  but  within  forty 


522  THE    HOLY    ROMAN    EMPIRE 

years  the  beginning  of  the  great  war  with  England  disabled  her  for  more 
than  a  century  from  actively  prosecuting  schemes  in  Italy  or  Germany. 

XV 

Note  to  p.  267 

The  mediaeval  practice  seems  to  have  been  that  which  still  prevails  in  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church  —  to  presume  the  doctrinal  orthodoxy  and  external 
conformity  of  every  citizen,  whether  lay  or  clerical,  until  the  contrary  be 
proved.  Of  course  when  heresy  was  rife  it  went  hard  with  suspected  men, 
unless  they  could  either  clear  themselves  or  submit  to  recant.  But  it  was 
unusual  to  require  any  one  to  pledge  himself  beforehand,  as  a  qualification 
for  an  office,  to  certain  doctrines.  And  thus,  important  as  an  Emperor's 
orthodoxy  was,  he  does  not  appear  to  have  been  subjected  to  any  test  (in  the 
modern  sense  of  the  word),  although  the  Pope  pretended  to  the  right  of 
catechizing  him  in  the  faith  and  rejecting  him  if  unsound.  In  the  Ordo 
Romanus  we  find  a  long  series  of  questions  which  the  pontiff  was  to  adminis- 
ter, but  it  does  not  appear,  and  is  in  the  highest  degree  unlikely,  that  such  a 
programme  was  ever  carried  out.  At  the  German  coronation,  however  (per- 
formed in  earlier  clays  at  Aachen,  afterwards  at  Frankfort),  the  custom  was 
for  the  Emperor  before  he  was  anointed  to  declare  his  orthodoxy  by  an  oath 
taken  on  the  famous  copy  of  the  Gospels  which  was  held  to  have  been  used 
by  Charles  the  Great,  and  on  a  casket  containing  earth  soaked  with  the  blood 
of  the  martyr  Stephen. 

At  the  coronation  of  an  East  Roman  Emperor  the  Patriarch  submitted  a 
confession  of  orthodoxy  which  the  Emperor  subscribed. 

The  charge  of  heresy  was  one  of  the  weapons  used  with  most  effect  against 
Frederick  II  (Lewis  IV  retorted  it  on  Pope  John  XXII);  and  as  the  Popes 
might  hold  disobedience  to  themselves  to  be  virtually  heresy,  it  was  a  charge 
easily  and  often  brought  against  their  opponents. 

XVI 

Note  to  p.  283 

There  is  a  curious  seal  of  the  Emperor  Otto  IV  (figured  in  J.  M.  Heinec- 
cius,  De  veteribus  Gtrmanorum  atqut  aliarum  nationum  sigHHs),  on  which 
the  sun  and  moon  are  represented  over  the  head  of  the  Emperor.  Heinec- 
cius  says  he  cannot  explain  it,  but  it  may  possibly  be  taken  as  typifying  the 
accord  of  the  spiritual  and  temporal  powers  which  were  brought  about  at  the 
accession  of  Otto,  the  Guelfic  leader,  and  the  favoured  candidate  of  Pope 
Innocent  III. 

The  analogy  between  the  lights  of  heaven  and  the  potentates  of  earth,  in 
which  mediaeval  writers  rejoice,  seems  to  have  originated  with  Gregory  VII. 


ADDITIONAL  NOTES  523 

Ockham  tries  to  avoid  it  by  distinguishing  between  the  substance  and  the 
accidents  of  the  moon.  A  gloss  upon  a  letter  of  Innocent  III  inserted  in  the 
Corpus  Juris  Canonici  (Decret.  Greg.  I.  p.  33)  says,  '  Cum  terra  sit  septies 
maior  luna  sol  autem  octies  maior  terra,  restat  ergo  ut  pontificatus  dignitas 
quadragies  septies  sit  maior  regali  dignitate.' 

This  Sun  and  Moon  argument  continued  to  be  so  frequently  used,  and 
was  apparently  deemed  so  formidable,  that  the  Parlement  of  Paris  forbade  it 
as  late  as  A.D.  1626.  —  Friedberg,  Die  mittelalterlichen  Lehren  uber  das  Ver- 
h'dltniss  von  Staat  und Kirche. 

XVII 

Note  to  p.  294 

Arnold  was  born  about  A.D.  1090  or  perhaps  a  little  later;  he  studied  in 
the  University  of  Paris  and  was  associated  with  Abelard  in  the  condemnation 
pronounced  on  the  latter.  Driven  from  France  he  lived  for  some  time  at 
Zurich,  where  his  preaching  made  a  deep  impression,  and  thence  made  his 
way,  apparently  accompanied  by  some  of  his  Alemannic  followers,  to  Rome, 
where  Pope  Eugenius  III  permitted  him  to  remain.  He  is  described  as  not 
only  a  powerful  and  persuasive  preacher  but  also  a  man  of  learning. 

He  appears  to  have  maintained  that  holy  orders  were  not  indelible,  and 
to  have  denounced  the  rule  of  the  Pope  and  cardinals  in  Rome;  'praeterea 
non  esse  homines  admittendos  qui  sedem  imperii  fontem  libertatis  Romam 
mundi  dominam  volebant  subicere  servituti'  (John  of  Salisbury).  He  and 
his  followers  mocked  at  the  fable  of  Constantine's  Donation.  See  a  letter  in 
Wibaldi,  Epistolae  (No.  404)  in  Jaffe,  Biblioth.  I,  quoted  by  Giesebrecht. 

The  chief  authorities  for  his  Roman  career  are  Otto  of  Freysing,  i.  26  and 
ii.  20  sqq.;  Godfrey  of  Viterbo,  11.  139  sqq.;  and  a  poem,  apparently  by  a 
contemporary  hand,  lately  published  (under  the  title  Gesta  di  Federico  impera- 
tore  in  Italia)  by  the  Italian  Istituto  Storico  (the  volume  is  edited  by  E. 
Monaci).  This  poem,  after  describing  with  sympathy  the  fortitude  of  Arnold 
at  the  moment  of  death,  adds  that  Frederick  was  believed  to  have  repented 
of  the  part  he  played,  '  set  doluisse  datur  super  hoc  rex  sero  misertus '  (line 
850).  See  also  his  contemporary  John  of  Salisbury,  Histor.  Pontif.  ch.  21 
(Pertz,  Script,  xx.  537),  and  Gerhoh  prior  of  Reichersberg,  who,  though  a 
strong  churchman,  regrets  Arnold's  execution,  saying  that  he  acted  'zelo 
forte  bono  sed  minore  scientia,'  and  that  he  wished  the  See  of  Rome  was  not 
answerable  for  his  death.  (Gerhoh  is  in  Pertz,  Libelli  de  lite  Imperatorum  et 
Pontificum,  vol.  iii.)  A  recent  discussion  of  Arnold's  principles  and  conduct 
may  be  found  in  the  interesting  book  of  Ruggiero  Bonghi,  Arnaldo  da 
Brescia,  1895.  Brescia  has  erected  a  statue  to  her  famous  son,  but  Rome, 
though  now  beginning  to  be  filled  with  such  memorials,  has  not  yet  paid  this 


524  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

honour  to  the  boldest  and  most  disinterested  of  mediaeval  reformers;  not 
has  Padua  yet  commemorated  her  Marsilius  by  any  effigy,  though  she  has 
called  a  street  after  him. 

XVIII 

Note  to  p.  299 

Cola  di  Rienzo  was  the  son  of  a  man  named  Laurence,  who  kept  a  wine- 
shop on  the  edge  of  the  Ghetto  near  the  Tiber.  (Can  Cola  have  had  some 
Jewish  blood  ?  There  are  traces  in  his  imagination  and  behaviour  of  some- 
thing not  quite  Italian,  not  even  Roman.)  He  gave  himself  out,  in  middle 
life,  to  be  an  illegitimate  son  of  the  Emperor  Henry  VII,  and  tells  the  story 
at  length  in  a  letter  to  the  Emperor  Charles  IV,  who  was  Henry's  grandson. 
The  tale  might  possibly  have  been  true,  for  Henry  was  in  Rome  in  1312,  but 
is  probably  an  invention,  though  Cola  says  the  Romans  believed  it. 

The  (apparently  contemporary)  Vita  di  Cola  di  Rienzo  is  one  of  the  most 
striking  among  mediaeval  biographies,  and  presents  a  picture  so  vivid  that 
one  cannot  help  thinking  it  life-like.  There  is  much  curious  matter  in  his 
letters,  which  may  be  read  in  the  Epistolario  di  Cola  di  Rienzo,  published 
by  the  Italian  Istituto  Storico  (ed.  A.  Gabrielli,  1890). 

Cola  called  himself  Augustus  as  well  as  tribune;  'tribune  Augusto  de 
Roma.'  He  cited,  on  becoming  Tribune,  the  cardinals  to  appear  before  the 
people  of  Rome  and  give  an  account  of  their  conduct;  and  after  them  the 
Emperor.  '  Ancora  citao  lo  Bavaro  (Lewis  the  Fourth).  Puoi  citao  li  elet- 
tori  de  lo  imperio  in  Alemagna,  e  disse  "  Voglio  vedere  che  rascione  haco 
nella  elettione,"  che  trovasse  scritto  che  passato  alcuno  tempo  la  elettione 
recadeva  a  li  Romani.'  —  Vita,  c.  xxvi.  His  letter  to  the  Commune  of  Viterbo 
begins :  '  Nicholaus  severus  et  clemens,  libertatis  pacis  iustitiaeque  tribunus 
et  sacrae  Romanae  reipublicae  liberator,  nobilibus  et  prudentibus  viris  potes- 
tati  capitaneo  bonis  hominibus  sindico  consilio  et  communi  civitatis  Viterbii 
in  Tuscia.'  —  Epist.  II.  p.  6,  of  Epistolario. 

XIX 
Note  to  p.  307 

The  only  Teutonic  Emperors  buried  in  Italy  besides  Otto  II  were,  so  far 
as  I  know,  Lewis  the  Second  (whose  tomb,  with  an  inscription  commemorat- 
ing his  exploits,  is  built  into  the  wall  of  the  north  aisle  of  the  famous  church 
of  St.  Ambrose  at  Milan) ;  Henry  the  Sixth  and  Frederick  the  Second,  at 
Palermo;  Conrad  IV,  at  Messina;  and  Henry  VII,  whose  sarcophagus  may 
be  seen  in  the  Campo  Santo  of  Pisa,  a  city  always  conspicuous  for  her  zeal  on 
the  imperial  side. 

Eight  Emperors  or  German  kings   (Conrad  II,  Henry  III,  Henry  IV, 


ADDITIONAL   NOTES  525 

Henry  V,  Philip,  Rudolf  I,  Adolf,  and  Albert  I)  lie  in  the  cathedral  of 
Speyer;  five  (Charles  IV,  Wenzel,  Ferdinand  I,  Maximilian  II,  and  Rudolf 
II)  at  Prague;  two  (Charles  I  and  Otto  III)  at  Aachen;  two  (Henry  II  and 
Conrad  III)  at  Bamberg;  two  (Lewis  IV  and  Charles  VII)  at  Munich;  two 
(Arnulf  and  his  son  Lewis  the  Child)  at  Regensburg;  Lewis  the  Pious  at 
Metz,  Lothar  I  at  Priim  near  Treves,  Charles  the  Bald  at  St.  Denis  (in 
France),  Charles  the  Fat  at  Reichenau  on  the  Lake  of  Constance,  Conrad  I 
at  Fulda,  Henry  I  at  Quedlinburg,  Otto  I  at  Magdeburg,  Lothar  II  at  Konigs- 
lutter  near  Brunswick,  Otto  IV  at  Brunswick,  Rupert  at  Heidelberg,  Sigismund 
at  Nagy  Varad  (Gross  Wardein)  in  Transylvania,  Albert  II  at  Stuhlweissen- 
burg  in  Hungary,  Charles  V  in  the  Escurial  in  Spain,  Frederick  III  and  most 
of  his  successors  at  Vienna.  The  bones  of  Frederick  I  were  interred  at  Tyre. 
Of  all  the  tombs  the  noblest  is  that  of  Maximilian  I  at  Innsbruck. 

XX 

Note  to  p.  312 

Thus  in  the  noble  church  of  San  Lorenzo  fuori  le  mura  there  are  several 
Pointed  windows,  now  bricked  up;  and  similar  ones  may  be  seen  in  the 
church  of  Ara  Coeli  on  the  summit  of  the  Capitol.  So  in  the  apse  of  St. 
John  Lateran  there  are  three  or  four  windows  of  Gothic  form:  and  in  its 
cloister,  as  well  as  in  that  of  St.  Paul  without  the  walls,  a  great  deal  of  beauti- 
ful work  in  the  so-called  Lombard  style.  The  elegant  porch  of  the  church 
of  Sant'  Antonio  Abate  is  Lombard.  In  the  apse  of  the  church  of  San  Gio- 
vanni e  Paolo  on  the  Coelian  hill  there  is  an  external  arcade  exactly  like 
those  of  the  Duomo  at  Pisa.  Nor  are  these  the  only  instances. 

The  ruined  chapel  attached  to  the  fortress  of  the  Caetani  family  —  the 
family  to  which  Boniface  the  Eighth  belonged,  and  which  still  holds  a  dis- 
tinguished place  among  the  Roman  nobility  —  is  a  pretty  little  building,  more 
like  northern  Gothic  than  anything  within  the  walls  of  Rome.  It  stands  upon 
the  Appian  Way,  opposite  the  tomb  of  Caecilia  Metella,  which  the  Caetani 
used  as  a  stronghold. 

XXI 

Note  to  p.  314 

The  finest  of  the  similar  Ravenna  mosaics  are  rather  older  than  these 
Roman  ones :  but  some  there,  as  well  as  a  few  others  elsewhere  in  Italy  (e.g. 
the  beautiful  ones  at  Torcello),  date  from  the  seventh,  eighth,  and  ninth  cen- 
turies. The  magnificent  mosaics  of  Monreale  and  Cefalfi  in  Sicily  belong  to  the 
twelfth  century,  and  were  probably  executed  by  artists  from  Constantinople. 

These  campaniles  are  generally  supposed  to  date  from  the  ninth  and  tenth 
centuries.  Mr.  J.  H.  Parker,  however,  a  competent  judge,  told  me  that  an 


526  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

examination  of  their  mouldings  convinced  him  that  few  or  none,  unless  it  be 
that  of  Santa  Prassede,  are  older  than  the  twelfth  century. 

This  of  course  applies  only  to  the  existing  buildings.  The  type  of  towet 
may  be,  and  indeed  no  doubt  is,  older. 

Somewhat  similar  towers  may  be  observed  in  many  parts  of  the  Italian  Alps, 
especially  in  the  wonderful  mountain  land  north  of  Venice,  where  such  towers 
are  of  all  dates  from  the  eleventh  or  twelfth  down  to  the  nineteenth  century, 
the  ancient  type  having  in  these  remote  valleys  been  adhered  to  because  the 
builder  had  no  other  models  before  him.  In  the  valley  of  Cimolais  (not 
very  far  from  Longarone  in  Val  d'  Ampezzo)  I  have  seen  such  a  campanile  in 
course  of  erection,  precisely  similar  to  others  in  the  neighbouring  villages  some 
eight  centuries  old. 

The  very  curious  round  towers  of  Ravenna,  some  four  or  five  of  which  are 
still  standing,  seem  to  have  originally  had  similar  windows,  though  these  have 
been  all,  or  nearly  all,  stopped  up.  The  Irish  round  towers  were  probably 
copied  from  these  Ravennate  towers,  or  others  of  the  same  type.  The  Roman 
towers  are  all  square. 

XXII 

Note  to  p.  330 

The  ceremonies  of  the  coronation  of  an  East  Roman  Emperor  took  by 
degrees  an  ecclesiastical  and  religious  character  not  less  marked  than  that 
which  belonged  to  imperial  coronations  in  the  West.  (Interesting  details 
regarding  them  may  be  found  in  an  article  by  W.  Sickel  in  Byzantinische 
Zeitschrift,  vol.  vii.  pp.  511-557  ;  in  another  by  Mr.  Brightman  in  the  Jour- 
nal of  Theological  Studies  for  April,  1901.)  The  first  coronation  performed 
by  the  Patriarch  of  Constantinople  was  either  that  of  Marcian  (A.D.  450) 
or  that  of  Leo  I,  A.D.  457  (after  Anastasius  it  was  the  usual  though  not  in- 
variable practice) ;  the  first  performed  in  a  church  (the  usual  place  was  S. 
Sophia)  was  that  of  Phocas  in  A.D.  602  ;  the  first  in  which  the  rite  of  anoint- 
ing (customary  in  the  West  since  the  time  of  Pipin  and  that  of  Charles  the 
Great)  seems  to  have  been  used,  was  that  of  Basil  I  (A.D.  886)  (Sickel,  ul 
supra,  p.  524).  Brightman,  however,  puts  it  as  far  down  as  the  coronation 
of  (the  Latin)  Baldwin  in  1204.  Sometimes  an  Emperor  crowned  himself, 
sometimes  when  he  took  a  colleague  he  crowned  the  person  he  had  chosen. 
The  practice  of  raising  the  newly-chosen  Emperor  on  a  buckler,  which  began 
with  the  inauguration  of  Julian  in  A.D.  361,  and  was  evidently  a  Teutonic 
usage  familiar  to  the  barbarian  troops  who  acclaimed  Julian,  continued  in 
the  Eastern  Empire  for  some  considerable  time.  The  last  recorded  case 
seems  to  be  that  of  Phocas  ;  but  it  may  well  have  lasted  much  longer.  At 
his  coronation  the  Eastern,  like  the  Western,  Emperor  received  the  sacra- 
mental wine,  like  a  priest,  in  the  chalice,  whereas  laymen  in  the  East  commu- 


ADDITIONAL   NOTES  527 

nicated  from  a  spoon  containing  both  kinds  (i.e.  a  morsel  of  bread  dipped  in 
wine)  (intincta  eucharistia).  He  also  took  an  oath  to  defend  the  Church 
and  solemnly  professed  his  orthodoxy,  subscribing  a  confession  of  faith,  recit- 
ing the  creed,  and  declaring  his  assent  to  the  decrees  of  the  seven  oecumeni- 
cal councils. 

Neither  the  diadem  nor  the  assumption  of  the  purple,  which  was  the  oldest 
sign  of  the  imperial  dignity,  nor  the  action  of  the  Patriarch,  was  essential 
to  the  authority  of  an  Emperor.  He  was  thus  better  off  than  his  Western 
brother,  who  must  receive  the  imperial  crown  in  Rome  and  from  the  Roman 
bishop. 

XXIII 

Note  to  p.  343 

•Isaachius  a  Deo  constitutus  Imperator,  sacratissimus,  excellentissimus, 
potentissimus,  moderator  Romanorum,  Angelus  totius  orbis,  heres  coronae 
magni  Constantini,  dilecto  fratri  imperil  sui,  maximo  principi  Alemanniae.' 
A  remarkable  speech  of  Frederick's  to  the  envoys  of  Isaac,  who  had  ad- 
dressed a  letter  to  him  as  '  Rex  Alemaniae,'  is  preserved  by  Ansbert  (Historic* 
de  Expeditione  Friderici  Imperatoris'}  :  — '  Dominus  Imperator  divina  se 
illustrante  gratia  ulterius  dissimulare  non  valens  temerarium  fastum  regis  (st. 
Graecorum)  et  usurpantem  vocabulum  falsi  imperatoris  Romanorum,  haec 
inter  caetera  exorsus  est :  —  "  Omnibus  qui  sanae  mentis  sunt  constat,  quia 
unus  est  Monarchus  Imperator  Romanorum,  sicut  et  unus  est  pater  universi- 
tatis  pontifex  videlicet  Romanus;  ideoque  cum  ego  Romani  imperii  sceptrum 
plusquam  per  annos  XXX  absque  omnium  regum  vel  principum  contradic- 
tione  tranquille  tenuerim  et  in  Romana  urbe  a  summo  pontifice  imperiali 
benedictione  unctus  sim  et  sublimatus,  quia  denique  Monarchiam  praedeces- 
sores  mei  imperatores  Romanorum  plusquam  per  CCCC  annos  etiam  gloriose 
transmiserint  utpote  a  Constantinopolitana  urbe  ad  pristinam  sedem  imperii, 
caput  orbis  Romam,  acclamatione  Romanorum  et  principum  imperii,  auctori- 
tate  quoque  summi  pontificis  et  S.  catholicae  ecclesiae  translatam,  propter  tar- 
dum  et  infructuosum  Constantinopolitani  imperatoris  auxilium  contra  tyrannos 
ecclesiae,  mirandum  est  admodum  cur  frater  meus  dominus  vester  Constanti- 
nopolitanus  imperator  usurpet  inefficax  sibi  idem  vocabulum  et  glorietur  stulte 
alieno  sibi  prorsus  honore,  cum  liquido  noverit  me  et  nomine  dici  et  re  esse 
Fridericum  Romanorum  imperatorem  semper  Augustum." ' 

Isaac  was  so  far  moved  by  Frederick's  indignation  that  in  his  next  letter 
he  addressed  him  as  '  generosissimum  imperatorem  Alemaniae,'  and  in  a 
third  thus :  — 

'  Isaakius  in  Christo  fidelis  divinitus  coronatus,  sublimis,  potens,  excelsus, 
haeres  coronae  magni  Constantini  et  Moderator  Romeon  Angelus  nubilissimo 
Imperatori  antiquae  Romae,  regi  Alemaniae  et  dilecto  fratri  imperii  sui,  salu- 
tem,'  &c.,  &c.  (Ansbert,  ut  supra). 


528  THE   HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

XXIV 

Note  to  p.  410 

In  an  address  by  Napoleon  to  the  Senate  in  1804,  bearing  date  loth  Fri- 
maire  (ist  Dec.),  are  the  words,  '  Mes  descendans  conserveront  longtemps  ce 
tr6ne,  le  premier  de  Punivers.'  Answering  a  deputation  from  the  depart- 
ment of  the  Lippe,  Aug.  8th,  1811,  'La  Providence,  qui  a  voulu  que  je  reta- 
blisse  le  trfine  de  Charlemagne,  vous  a  fait  naturellement  rentrer,  avec  la 
Hollande  et  les  villes  anseatiques,  dans  le  sein  de  PEmpire.'  —  Oeuvres  de 
Napoleon,  torn.  v.  p.  521. 

'  Pour  le  Pape,  je  suis  Charlemagne,  parce  que,  comme  Charlemagne,  je 
reunis  la  couronne  de  France  a  celle  des  Lombards,  et  que  mon  Empire  con- 
fine avec  POrient.'  (Quoted  by  Lanfrey,  Vie  de  Napoleon,  iii.  417.) 

'Votre  Saintete  est  souveraine  de  Rome,  mais  j'en  suis  PEmpereur.'  — 
Letter  of  Napoleon  to  Pope  Pius,  Feb.  I3th,  1806.  Lanfrey. 

'Dites  bien,'  says  Napoleon  to  Cardinal  Fesch,  'que  je  suis  Charlemagne, 
leur  Empereur  [of  the  Papal  Court]  que  je  dois  £tre  traite  de  m§me.  Je  fais 
connattre  au  Pape  mes  intentions  en  peu  de  mots;  s'il  n'y  acquiesce  pas,  je  le 
reduirai  a  la  mfcrne  condition  qu'il  6tait  avant  Charlemagne.'  —  Lanfrey,  Vie 
de  Napoleon,  iii.  420. 

Napoleon  said  on  one  occasion,  '  Je  n'ai  pas  succede  a  Louis  Quatorze, 
mais  a  Charlemagne.'  —  Bourrienne,  Vie  de  Napoleon,  vi.  256,  who  adds  that 
in  1804,  shortly  before  he  was  crowned,  he  had  the  imperial  insignia  of 
Charles  brought  from  the  old  Prankish  capital,  and  exhibited  them  in  a 
jeweller's  shop  in  Paris,  along  with  those  which  had  just  been  made  for  his 
own  coronation.  But  if  there  was  not  in  this  a  trick  of  Napoleon's,  there 
must  be  a  mistake  of  Bourrienne's,  for  these  insignia  had  been  removed  from 
Aachen  by  Austria  in  1798.  (Cf.  Bock,  Die  Kleinodien  des  h.  romischen 
Reiches,  p.  4.)  This  was  done  in  the  same  spirit  which  made  him  display 
the  Bayeux  embroidery,  in  order  to  incite  his  subjects  to  the  conquest  of 
England. 


APPENDIX 
NOTE   A 

ON  THE  BURGUNDIES 

IT  would  be  hard  to  mention  any  geographical  name 
which,  by  its  application  at  different  times  to  different  dis- 
tricts, has  caused,  and  continues  to  cause,  more  confusion 
than  this  name  Burgundy.  There  may,  therefore,  be  some 
use  in  a  brief  statement  of  the  more  important  of  those 
applications.  Without  going  into  the  minutiae  of  the  sub- 
ject, the  following  may  be  given  as  the  ten  senses  in  which 
the  name  is  most  frequently  to  be  met  with :  — 

I.  The  kingdom  of  the  Burgundians  (regnum  Bnrgun- 
dionum},  formed  by  the  settlement  of  this  tribe  in  Savoy 
and  the  lands  south-west  of  the  Rhine,*  A. D.  443-475.     At 
its  meridian  it  included  the  whole  valley  of  the  Saone  and 
Lower  Rhone,  from  Dijon  to  the  Mediterranean,  and  also 
the  western  half  of  what  is  now  Switzerland.     It  was  over- 
thrown by  the  sons  of  Clovis  in  A.D.  534. 

II.  The  kingdom   of   Burgundy  (regnum  Burgundiae), 
mentioned  occasionally  under  the  Merovingian  kings  as  a 
separate    principality,    confined   within    boundaries   appa- 
rently somewhat  narrower  than  those  of  the  older  king- 
dom last  named. 

III.  The  kingdom  of  Provence  or  Burgundy  (regnum 
Provinciae  seu  Burgundiae)  —  also,  though  less  accurately, 

*•  Before  this  time,  the  Burgundians  had  been  for  a  while  upon  the  Middle 
Rhine.     The  Nibelungen-Lied  places  them  at  Worms. 
2M  529 


530  APPENDIX 


called  the  kingdom  of  Cisjurane  Burgundy  —  was  founded 
by  Boso  in  A.D.  877-879,  and  included  Provence,  Dauphine, 
the  southern  part  of  Savoy,  and  the  country  between  the 
Saone  and  the  Jura. 

IV.  The  kingdom  of  Transjurane  Burgundy  (regnum 
lurense,  Burgundia  Transiurensis),  founded  by  Rudolf  in 
A.D.   888,  recognized  in  the  same  year  by  the  Emperor 
Arnulf,  included  the  northern  part  of  Savoy,  and  nearly 
all  that  part  of  Switzerland  which  lies  between  the  Reuss 
and  the  Jura. 

V.  The  kingdom  of  Burgundy  or  Aries  (regnum  Bur- 
gundiae,  regnum  Arelatense),  formed  by  the  union,  under 
Conrad  the  Pacific,  in  A.D.  937,  of  the  kingdoms  described 
above  as  III  and  IV.     On  the  death,  in  1032,  of  the  last 
independent  king,  Rudolf  III,  it  came  partly  by  bequest, 
partly  by  conquest,  into  the  hands  of  the  Emperor  Conrad 
II  (the   Salic),  and  thenceforward  formed  a  part  of  the 
Empire.     In  the  thirteenth  century,  France  began  to  ab- 
sorb it,  bit  by  bit  (though  she  did  not  take  Avignon  till  the 
Revolution),   and  she  has  now  (since  the  annexation  of 
Savoy  in  1861)  acquired  all  except  the  Swiss  portion. 

VI.  The    Lesser    Duchy    (Burgundia    Minor)    (Klein 
Burgund)   corresponded   very   nearly   with   what  is   now 
Switzerland  west  of  the  Reuss,  including  Canton  Valais. 
It  was  Transjurane  Burgundy  (IV)  minus  the   parts   of 
Savoy  which  had  belonged  to  that  kingdom.     It  disap- 
pears from  history  after  the  extinction   of   the  house  of 
Zahringen  in  the  thirteenth  century.     Legally  it  was  part 
of  the  Empire  till  A.D.  1648,  though  practically  indepen- 
dent long  before  that  date. 

VII.  The    Free    County   or   Palatinate    of    Burgundy 
(Franche-Comte")    (Freigrafschaft)    (called     also     Upper 
Burgundy),  to  which  the   name   of   Cisjurane    Burgundy 
originally  and  properly  belonged,  lay  between  the  Saone 


NOTE  A  531 

and  the  Jura.  It  formed  a  part  of  III  and  V,  and  was 
therefore  a  fief  of  the  Empire.  The  French  dukes  of 
Burgundy  were  invested  with  it  in  A.D.  1384.  Its  capital, 
the  imperial  city  of  Besangon,  was  given  to  Spain  in  1651, 
and  by  the  treaty  of  Nimwegen,  1678-1679,  it  was  ceded 
to  the  crown  of  France. 

VIII.  The  Landgraviate  of  Burgundy  (Landgrafschaft) 
lay  in  what  is  now  Western  Switzerland,  on  both  sides  of 
the  Aar,  between  Thun  and  Solothurn.     It  was  a  part  of 
the  Lesser  Duchy  (VI),  and,  like  it,  is  hardly  mentioned 
after  the  thirteenth  century. 

IX.  The  circle  of  Burgundy  (Kreis  Burgund),  an  ad- 
ministrative division  of  the   Empire,  was  established  by 
Charles  V  in  1548,  and  included  the  Free  County  of  Bur- 
gundy (VII)  and  the  seventeen  provinces  of  the  Nether- 
lands,   which    Charles    inherited    from    his   grandmother 
Mary,  daughter  of  Charles  the  Bold. 

X.  The  Duchy  of  Burgundy  (Lower  Burgundy)  (Bour- 
gogne),  the  most  northerly  part  of  the  old  kingdom  of  the 
Burgundians,  was  always  a  fief  of  the  crown  of  France 
(Francia  Occidentalis\  and  a  province  of  France  till  the 
Revolution.     It  was  of  this  Burgundy  that  Philip  the  Good 
and  Charles  the  Bold  were  Dukes.    They  were  also  Counts 
of  the  Free  County  (VII). 

There  was  very  nearly  being  an  eleventh  Burgundy. 
In  1784  Joseph  II  proposed  to  the  Elector  of  Bavaria  to 
give  him  the  Austrian  Netherlands,  except  the  citadels  of 
Luxemburg  and  Limburg,  with  the  title  of  King  of  Bur- 
gundy, in  exchange  for  his  Bavarian  dominions,  which 
Joseph  was  anxious  to  get  hold  of.  The  Elector  consented, 
France  (bribed  by  the  offer  of  Luxemburg  and  Limburg) 
and  Russia  approved,  and  the  project  was  only  baffled  by  the 
promptitude  of  Frederick  the  Great  in  forming  the  League 
of  Princes  to  preserve  the  integrity  of  German  territories. 


532  APPENDIX 


The  most  copious  and  accurate  information  regarding 
the  obscure  history  of  the  Burgundian  kingdoms  (III,  IV, 
and  V)  is  to  be  found  in  the  contributions  of  Baron 
Frederic  de  Gingins  la  Sarraz,  a  Vaudois  historian,  to  the 
Archiv  fur  Schweizer  Geschichte.  Reference  may  also  be 
made  to  Mr.  E.  A.  Freeman's  Historical  Geography,  and 
to  an  essay  in  his  historical  essays  entitled  The  Franks  and 
the  Gauls. 


NOTE   B 

ON  THE  RELATIONS  TO  THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE 
KINGDOM  OF  DENMARK,  AND  THE  DUCHIES  OF 
SCHLESWIG  AND  HOLSTEIN 

THE  history  of  the  relations  of  Denmark  and  the 
duchies  to  the  Romano-Germanic  Empire  is  a  very  small 
part  of  the  great  Schleswig-Holstein  controversy.  But 
having  been  unnecessarily  mixed  up  with  two  questions 
really  quite  distinct  —  the  first,  as  to  the  relation  of  Schles- 
wig  to  Holstein,  and  of  both  jointly  to  the  Danish  crown ; 
the  second,  as  to  the  diplomatic  engagements  which  the 
Danish  kings  had  in  recent  times  contracted  with  the  Ger- 
man powers  —  it  bore  its  part  in  making  the  whole  ques- 
tion the  most  intricate  and  interminable  that  had  vexed 
Europe  for  two  centuries  and  a  half.  The  facts  as  to  the 
Empire  are  as  follows  :  — 

I.  The  Danish  kings  began  to  own  the  supremacy  of 
the  Frankish  Emperors  early  in  the  ninth  century.     Hav- 
ing recovered  their  independence  in  the  confusion  that 
followed  the  fall  of  the  Carolingian  dynasty,  they  were 
again  subdued  by  Henry  the  Fowler  and  Otto  the  Great, 
and  continued  tolerably  submissive  till  the  death  of  Fred- 
erick II  and  the  period  of  anarchy  which  followed.     Since 
that  time  Denmark  has  always  been  independent,  although 
her  king  was,  until  the  treaty  of  A.D.   1865,  a  member  of 
the  German  Confederation  as  duke  of  Holstein  and  Lauen- 
burg. 

II.  Schleswig  was   in  Carolingian   times   Danish ;  the 
Eyder  being,  as  Eginhard  tells  us,  the  boundary  between 

533 


534  APPENDIX 


Saxonia  Transalbiana  (Holstein),  and  the  Terra  Nortman- 
norum  (wherein  lay  the  town  of  Sliesthorp),  inhabited 
by  the  Scandinavian  heathen.  Otto  the  Great  conquered 
all  Schleswig,  and,  it  is  said,  Jutland  also,  and  added  the 
southern  part  of  Schleswig  to  the  immediate  territory  of 
the  Empire,  erecting  it  into  a  margraviate.  So  it  remained 
till  the  days  of  Conrad  II,  who  made  the  Eyder  again  the 
boundary,  retaining  of  course  his  suzerainty  over  the  king- 
dom of  Denmark  as  a  whole.  But  by  this  time  the  colo- 
nization of  Schleswig  by  the  Germans  had  begun :  and  ever 
since  the  numbers  of  the  Danish  population  seem  to  have 
steadily  declined,  and  the  people  to  have  grown  (except  in 
the  northern  districts)  more  and  more  disposed  to  sympa- 
thize with  their  southern  rather  than  their  northern  neigh- 
bours. 

III.  Holstein  always  was  an  integral  part  of  the  Em- 
pire, as  it  was  afterwards  of  the  Germanic  Confederation 
and  is  now  of  the  new  German  Empire. 


NOTE   C 

ON    CERTAIN    IMPERIAL   TITLES  AND    CEREMONIES 

THIS  subject  is  a  great  deal  too  wide  and  too  intricate 
to  be  more  than  touched  upon  here.  But  a  few  brief 
statements  may  have  their  use;  for  the  practice  of  the 
Germanic  Emperors  varied  so  greatly  from  time  to  time 
that  the  reader  becomes  hopelessly  perplexed  without 
some  clue.  And  if  there  were  space  to  explain  the  causes 
of  each  change  of  title,  it  would  be  seen  that  the  subject, 
dry  as  it  may  appear,  is  neither  barren  nor  dull. 

I.  TITLES  OF  EMPERORS. 

Charles  the  Great  styled  himself  'Carolus  serenissimus 
Augustus,  a  Deo  coronatus,  magnus  et  pacificus  imperator, 
Romanum  (or  Romanorum)  gubernans  imperium,  qui  et 
per  misericordiam  Dei  rex  Francorum  et  Langobardorum.' 

Subsequent  Carolingian  Emperors  were  usually  entitled 
simply  '  Imperator  Augustus.'  Sometimes  '  rex  Francorum 
et  Langobardorum  '  was  added.* 

Conrad  I  and  Henry  I  (the  Fowler)  were  only  German 
kings. 

A  Saxon  Emperor  was,  before  his  coronation  at  Rome, 
'rex'  or  'rex  Francorum  Orientalium,'  or  'Francorum 
atque  Saxonum  rex ' ;  after  it  simply  '  Imperator  Augus- 
tus.' Otto  III  is  usually  said  to  have  introduced  the  form 

a  Waitz  {Deutsche  Verfassungsgeschichte)  says  that  the  phrase  'semper 
Augustus '  may  be  found  in  the  times  of  the  Carolingians,  but  in  no  official 
documents. 

535 


536  APPENDIX 


'  Roman orum  Imperator  Augustus,'  but  some  authorities 
state  that  it  occurs  in  documents  of  the  time  of  Lewis  I. 

Henry  II  and  his  successors,  not  daring  to  take  the  title 
of  Emperor  till  crowned  at  Rome  (in  conformity  with  the 
superstitious  notion  which  had  begun  with  Charles  the 
Bald),  but  anxious  to  claim  the  sovereignty  of  Rome  as 
indissolubly  attached  to  the  German  crown,  began  to  call 
themselves  'reges  Romanorum.'  The  title  did  not,  how- 
ever, become  common  or  regular  till  the  time  of  Henry  IV, 
in  whose  proclamations  (issued  before  his  Roman  corona- 
tion) it  occurs  constantly. 

From  the  eleventh  century  till  the  sixteenth,  the  invari- 
able practice  was  for  the  monarch  to  be  called  '  Romano- 
rum  rex  semper  Augustus '  till  his  coronation  at  Rome 
by  the  Pope ;  after  it,  '  Romanorum  Imperator  semper 
Augustus.' 

In  A.D.  1 508,  Maximilian  I,  being  refused  a  passage  to 
Rome  by  the  Venetians,  obtained  a  bull  from  Pope  Ju- 
lius II  permitting  him  to  call  himself  '  Imperator  electus' 
(erwahlter  Kaiser).  This  title  Ferdinand  I  (brother  of 
Charles  V)  and  all  succeeding  Emperors  took  immediately 
upon  their  German  coronation,  and  it  was  till  A.D.  1806 
their  strict  legal  designation,"  and  was  always  employed  by 
them  in  proclamations  or  other  official  documents.  The 
term  'elect'  was  however  omitted  even  in  formal  docu- 
ments when  the  sovereign  was  addressed,  or  spoken  of  in 
the  third  person ;  and  in  ordinary  practice  he  was  simply 
'  Roman  Emperor.' 

Maximilian  added  the  title  '  Germaniae  rex,'  which  had 
never  been  known  before,  although  the  phrase  'rex  Ger- 
manorum  '  may  be  found  employed  once  or  twice  in  early 

b  There  is  some  reason  to  think  that  towards  the  end  of  the  Empire  peo- 
ple had  begun  to  fancy  that  '  erwahlter  '  did  not  mean  '  elect,'  but  '  elective.1 
Cf.  note  k,  p.  414. 


NOTE  c 537 

times.  '  Rex  Teutonicorum,'  'regnum  Teutonicum,' c  occur 
often  in  the  tenth  and  eleventh  centuries.  Henry  VI  took 
the  title  of  Rex  Siciliae.  A  great  many  titles  of  less  con- 
sequence were  added  from  time  to  time.  Charles  the 
Fifth  had  seventy-five,  not,  of  course,  as  Emperor,  but  in 
virtue  of  his  vast  hereditary  possessions.4 

It  is  perhaps  worth  remarking  that  the  word  « Emperor ' 
has  not  at  all  the  same  meaning  now  that  it  had  even  so 
lately  as  two  centuries  ago.  Since  a  new  use  began  with 
Napoleon,  it  has  tended  to  become  a  title  of  no  special 
significance,  somewhat  more  pompous  than  that  of  King, 
and  supposed  to  belong  especially  to  despots.  It  is 
given  to  Eastern  princes,  like  those  of  China,  Japan,  and 
Abyssinia,  in  default  of  a  better  name.  It  was  for  a  time 
peculiarly  affected  by  new  dynasties ;  and  grew  so  fashion- 
able, that  what  with  Emperors  of  Brazil,  of  Hayti,  and  of 

c  These  expressions  seem  to  have  been  intended  to  distinguish  the  king- 
dom of  the  Eastern  or  Germanic  Franks  from  that  of  the  Western  or  Galli- 
cized Franks  (Francigenae),  which  having  been  for  some  time  '  regnum 
Francorum  Occidentalium,'  grew  at  last  to  be  simply  '  regnum  Franciae,'  the 
East  Prankish  kingdom  being  no  longer  so  called  because  swallowed  up  in 
the  Empire. 

It  is  not  very  easy  to  say  precisely  when  the  name  '  Francia '  came  to  de- 
note, to  Europe  generally,  what  we  now  call  France.  Bishop  Leopold  of 
Bamberg  (A.D.  1353)  complains  that  the  French  kings  were  then  already 
called  'reges  Franciae'  instead  of  'reges  Franciae  Occidentalis.'  In  the 
thirteenth  century  Snorri  Sturluson  speaks  of  Otto  the  Great  as  collecting 
an  army  from  '  Saxonland,  Frakland,  Friesland,  and  Vendland,'  apparently 
denoting  by  Frakland  the  old  Prankish  country  (F.  orientalis)  {Heimskringla, 
Olafs  Saga  Tryggvasonar).  In  England  the  name  had  no  doubt  changed  its 
meaning  some  time  earlier. 

d  What  is  stated  above  can  be  taken  as  only  generally  and  probably  true : 
so  great  are  the  discrepancies  among  even  the  most  careful  writers  on  the 
subject,  and  so  numerous  the  forgeries  of  a  later  age,  which  are  to  be  found 
among  the  genuine  documents  of  the  early  Empire.  Goldast's  Collections, 
for  instance,  are  full  of  forgeries  and  anachronisms.  Detailed  information 
may  be  found  in  Pfeffinger,  Moser,  and  Putter,  and  in  the  host  of  writers  to 
whom  they  refer. 


538  APPENDIX 


Mexico  (countries  that  have  now  become  republics),  the 
good  old  title  of  King  seemed  in  a  fair  way  to  become 
obsolete.6  But  in  former  times  there  was,  and  could  be, 
but  one  Emperor;  he  was  always  mentioned  with  a  cer- 
tain reverence :  his  name  summoned  up  a  host  of  thoughts 
and  associations,  which  moderns  do  not  comprehend  or 
sympathize  with.  His  office,  unlike  that  of  modern  Em- 
perors, was  by  its  very  nature  elective  and  not  hereditary ; 
and,  so  far  from  resting  on  conquest  or  the  will  of  the  peo- 
ple, rested  on  and  represented  pure  legality.  War  could 
give  him  nothing  which  law  had  not  given  him  already : 
the  people  had  delegated  all  their  power  to  him  long  ago, 
and  he  was  now  the  viceroy  of  God. 

II.   THE  CROWNS. 

Of  the  four  crowns  something  has  been  said  in  the  text. 
They  were  those  of  Germany,  taken  at  Aachen  (Aix-la- 
Chapelle)  in  earlier  times/  latterly  at  Frankfort,  once  or 
twice  at  Regensburg ;  —  of  Burgundy,  at  Aries  ;  —  of  Italy, 
sometimes  at  Pavia,  more  usually  at  Milan  or  Monza;  —  of 
the  world,  at  Rome. 

The  German  crown  was  taken  by  every  Emperor  after 
the  time  of  Otto  the  Great ;  that  of  Italy  by  every  one,  or 

*  We  in  England  may  be  thought  to  have  made  some  slight  movement  in 
the  same  direction,  by  calling  the  united  great  council  of  the  Three  King- 
doms the  Imperial  Parliament. 

f  In  the  gallery  of  the  basilica  in  the  ancient  Frankish  capital  there  may 
still  be  seen  the  marble  throne  on  which  the  Emperors  were  crowned  from 
the  days  of  Lewis  the  Pious  to  those  of  Ferdinand  the  First.  It  was  upon 
this  chair  that  Otto  III  had  found  the  body  of  Charles  seated,  when  he 
opened  his  tomb  in  A.D.  1001.  After  Ferdinand  I,  the  coronation  as  well  as 
the  election  took  place  at  Frankfort.  An  account  of  the  ceremony  may  be 
found  in  Goethe's  Wahrheit  und  Dichiung.  Aachen,  though  it  remained 
and  indeed  is  still  a  German  town,  lay  in  too  remote  a  corner  of  the  country 
to  be  a  convenient  capital,  and  was  moreover  in  dangerous  proximity  to  the 
West  Franks. 


NOTE   C  539 

almost  every  one,  who  took  the  Roman  down  to  Fred- 
erick III,  but  by  none  after  him;  that  of  Burgundy,  it 
would  appear,  by  four  Emperors  only,  Conrad  II,  Henry  III, 
Frederick  I,  and  Charles  IV.  The  imperial  crown  was 
received  at  Rome  by  most  Emperors  till  Frederick  III ; 
after  him  by  none  save  Charles  V,  who  obtained  both  it 
and  the  Italian  at  Bologna  in  a  somewhat  informal  manner. 
From  Ferdinand  I  onwards  the  Emperor  bound  himself 
by  his  capitulation,  to  use  all  diligence  to  obtain  the  impe- 
rial crown  with  reasonable  promptitude  ('  sich  zum  besten 
befleissigen  zu  wollen  die  kayserliche  Cron  auch  in  ziemlich 
gelegener  Zeit  zum  schiersten  zu  erlangen ').  At  the  Diet 
of  Ratisbon  in  1653  (when  Ferdinand  archduke  of  Austria 
was  chosen  king  of  the  Romans)  the  Protestants  protested 
against  this  article;  but  the  Emperor,  appealing  to  the 
Golden  Bull,  insisted  on  its  retention.  In  the  capitula- 
tion of  Leopold  I,  however,  and  his  successors  down  to 
Francis  II,  the  article  was  modified  so  as  to  bind  the  new 
sovereign  '  die  Romische-Konigliche  Cron  forderlichst  zu 
empfangen,  und  alles  dasjenige  dabey  zu  thun  so  sich 
derenthalben  gebiihret.' 

It  should  be  remembered  that  none  of  the  three  inferior 
crowns  were  necessarily  connected  with  that  of  the  Roman 
Empire,  which  might  have  been  held  by  a  simple  knight 
without  a  foot  of  land  in  the  world.  For  as  there  had 
been  Emperors  (Lothar  I,  Lewis  II,  Lewis  of  Provence, 
son  of  Boso,  Guy,  Lambert,  and  Berengar)  who  were  not 
kings  of  Germany,  so  there  were  several  (all  those  who 
preceded  Conrad  II)  who  were  not  kings  of  Burgundy, 
and  it  is  not  clear  that  all  were  formally  crowned  or  in- 
stalled as  kings  of  Italy.  It  is  also  worth  remarking,  that 
although  no  crown  save  the  German  was  assumed  by  the 
successors  of  Charles  V,  their  wider  rights  remained  in 
full  force,  and  were  never  subsequently  relinquished. 


540  APPENDIX 


There  was  nothing,  except  the  practical  difficulty  and 
absurdity  of  such  a  project,  to  prevent  Francis  II  from 
having  himself  crowned  at  Arles,g  Milan,  and  Rome. 

III.   THE  KING  OF  THE  ROMANS  (ROMISCHER  KONIG). 

It  has  been  shewn  above  how  and  why,  about  the  time 
of  Henry  II,  the  German  monarch  began  to  entitle  him- 
self '  Romanorum  rex.'  Now  it  was  not  uncommon  in  the 
Middle  Ages  for  the  heir-apparent  to  a  throne  to  be 
crowned  during  his  father's  lifetime,  that  at  the  death  of 
the  latter  he  might  step  at  once  into  his  place.  (Coro- 
nation, it  must  be  remembered,  which  is  now  merely  a 
spectacle,  was  in  those  days  not  only  a  sort  of  sacrament, 
but  a  matter  of  great  political  importance.)  This  plan 
was  specially  useful  in  an  elective  monarchy,  such  as  Ger- 
many was  after  the  twelfth  century,  for  it  avoided  the 
delays  and  dangers  of  an  election  while  the  throne  was 
vacant.  But  it  seemed  against  the  order  of  nature  to 
have  two  Emperors  at  once,h  and  as  the  sovereign's  au- 
thority in  Germany  depended  not  on  the  Roman  but  on 
the  German  coronation,  the  practice  came  to  be  that  each 
Emperor  during  his  own  life  procured,  if  he  could,  the 
election  of  his  successor,  who  was  crowned  at  Aachen, 
in  later  times  at  Frankfort,  and  took  the  title  of  '  King 
of  the  Romans.'  During  the  presence  of  the  Emperor 
in  Germany  he  exercised  (unless  by  special  delegation)  no 

8  Although  to  be  sure  the  Burgundian  dominions  had  all  passed  from 
the  Emperor  to  France,  the  kingdom  of  Sardinia,  and  the  Swiss  Confedera- 
tion, while  Italy  had  practically  been  long  since  separated  from  the  Empire, 

h  Nevertheless,  Otto  II  was  crowned  Emperor,  and  reigned  for  some  time 
along  with  his  father,  under  the  title  of  '  Co-Imperator.'  So  Lothar  I  was 
associated  in  the  Empire  with  Lewis  the  Pious,  as  Lewis  himself  had  been 
crowned  in  the  lifetime  of  Charles.  Many  analogies  to  the  practice  of  the 
Romano-Germanic  Empire  in  this  respect  might  be  adduced  from  the  history 
of  the  old  Roman  as  well  as  of  the  Byzantine  Empire. 


NOTE  C  541 

more  authority  than  a  Prince  of  Wales  does  in  England, 
but  on  the  Emperor's  death  he  succeeded  at  once,  without 
any  second  election  or  coronation,  and  assumed  (after  the 
time  of  Ferdinand  I)  the  title  of  '  Emperor  Elect.' '  Before 
Ferdinand's  time,  he  would  have  been  expected  to  go  to 
Rome  to  be  crowned  there.  While  the  Hapsburgs  held 
the  sceptre,  each  monarch  generally  contrived  in  this  way 
to  have  his  son  or  other  near  relative  chosen  to  succeed 
him.  But  some  were  foiled  in  their  attempts  to  do  so; 
and,  in  such  cases,  an  election  was  held  after  the  Emperor's 
death,  according  to  the  rules  laid  down  in  the  Golden  Bull. 

The  first  person  who  was  chosen  to  be  king  in  the  life- 
time of  an  Emperor  seems  to  have  been  Conrad,  son  of 
the  Emperor  Henry  IV. 

It  was  in  imitation  of  this  title  that  Napoleon  called  his 
son  King  of  Rome. 

There  was  a  certain  resemblance  between  the  position 
in  Hindostan  of  the  Mogul  monarchs  who  ruled  at  Delhi, 
Lahore,  and  Agra,  from  Akbar  the  Great  to  Aurungzebe, 
and  that  of  the  earlier  Teutonic  Emperors  in  Europe. 
And  the  supremacy  which  the  British  Crown  now  holds 
in  India  over  all  or  nearly  all  the  native  potentates  is  not 
unlike  that  which  mediaeval  theory  assigned  to  the  Em- 
peror among  Christian  princes.  It  suggested  the  creation 
by  statute  (39  &  40  Viet.  cap.  10)  of  the  title  'Emperor  of 
India'  now  attached  to  the  king  of  Great  Britain  and 
Ireland. 

1  Maximilian  had  obtained  this  title,  '  Emperor  Elect,'  from  the  Pope. 
Ferdinand  took  it  as  of  right,  and  his  successors  followed  the  example. 
Frederick  I  appears  to  have,  before  his  coronation,  spoken  of  himself  as 
'  Imperator  Electus.' 


NOTE   D 


DUM  simulacra  mihi,  dum  numina  vana  placebant, 

Militia,  populo,  moenibus  alta  fui : 
At  simul  effigies  arasque  superstitiosas 

Deiiciens,  uni  sum  famulata  Deo, 
Cesserunt  arces,  cecidere  palatia  divum, 

Servivit  populus,  degeneravit  eques. 
Vix  scio  quae  fuerim,  vix  Romae  Roma  recordor; 

Vix  sinit  occasus  vel  meminisse  mei. 
Gratior  haec  iactura  mihi  successibus  illis ; 

Maior  sum  pauper  divite,  stante  iacens : 
Plus  aquilis  vexilla  crucis,  plus  Caesare  Petrus, 

Plus  cinctis  ducibus  vulgus  inerme  dedit. 
Stans  domui  terras,  infernum  diruta  pulso, 

Corpora  stans,  animas  fracta  iacensque  rego. 
Tune  miserae  plebi,  modo  principibus  tenebrarum 

Impero :  tune  urbes,  nunc  mea  regna  polus. 

Written  by  Hildebert,  bishop  of  Le  Mans,  and  afterwards 
archbishop  of  Tours  (born  A.D.  1057).  Extracted  from  his 
works  as  printed  by  Migne,  Patrologiae  Cursus  Cowpletus* 

a  See  note  d,  p.  286. 


542 


NOTE   E 

LIST  OF  BOOKS  ON  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE  EMPIRE 
WHICH  MAY  BE  CONSULTED  BY  THE  STUDENT 

THE  historical  literature  bearing  on  the  history  of  the 
Empire  from  Charles  the  Great  to  Charles  V  is  very  large, 
and  only  a  few  books  can  be  selected  as  specially  useful  to 
the  student. 

The  original  authorities  of  most  importance  for  German 
history  will  be  found  in  the  collection  of  Pertz  (Monumenta 
Germanica  Historicd),  which  includes  some  bearing  on 
Italy,  and  those  for  Italian  history  in  Muratori,  Scriptores 
Rerum  Italicarum.  Some  others  have  also  been  recently 
published  by  the  Italian  Istituto  Storico. 

Among  systematic  histories  of  comparatively  recent  date 
the  following  may  be  mentioned  :  — 

Jahrbiicher  des  deutschen  Reiches,  by  various  scholars. 

Regesta  Pontificum  Romanonim,  by  Jaffe\ 

RANKE,  Weltgeschichte. 

GIESEBRECHT,  Geschichte  der  deutschen  Kaiserzeit. 

RICHTER,  Annalen  der  deutschen  Geschichte. 

Histoire  Ge'ne'rale  du  4me  Siecle  a  nos  jours,  edited  by 
E.  Lavisse  and  A.  Rambaud. 

ZELLER,  Histoire  de  VAllemagne. 

GIBBON,  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,  edited 
by  Bury. 

HODGKIN,  Italy  and  her  Invaders. 

GREGOROVIUS,  Geschichte  der  Stadt  Rom  im  Mittelalter. 

543 


544  APPENDIX 


GEBHARDT,  Handbuch  der  deutschen  Geschichte. 

RICHTER,  Annalen  der  deutschen  Geschichte  im  Mittelalter. 

LAMPRECHT,  Deutsche  Geschichte, 

BURY,  History  of  the  Later  Roman  Empire. 

FISHER  (H.  A.  L.),  The  Mediaeval  Empire. 
On  constitutional  subjects  the  student  may  consult:  — 

WAITZ,  Deutsche  Verfassungsgeschichte. 

HEGEL,  Italienische  Stddteverfassung. 

SCHRODER,  Lehrbuch  der  deutschen  Rechtsgeschichte. 
For   ecclesiastical   history,  the   following   works   may  be 
mentioned :  — 

MILMAN,  History  of  Latin  Christianity. 

HAUCK,  Kirchengeschichte  Deutschlands. 

Other  books,  and  especially  some  of  the  more  important 
original  authorities,  are  referred  to  in  the  footnotes  to  the 
several  chapters. 


INDEX 


Aachen  (aix-la-Chapelle)  — 
Capitulary  issued  at  (802),  66. 
Charlemagne's  favourite  residence 

at,  72  and  note1;   his  tomb  at,  75 

and  noteA. 
Coronations  at,  193,  501,  522,  538, 

54°. 
Imperial  tombs  at,  75  and  noteA, 

525- 

Lothar  I,  assigned  to,  78. 
Otto's  coronation  feast  at,  122. 
Situation  of,  538  note*. 
Abderrahman,  354. 
Abelard,  Peter,  295,  357. 
Adalbert  (son  of  Berengar),  133. 
Adalbert,  St.   (Woytech),    Lives   of, 
cited,   196  and  note  %,  259  note, 
286  note  b ;    love  of,  for  Rome, 
285;   ashes  of,  in  San  Bartolom- 
meo  Isola,  307. 

Adalgisus  of  Benevento,  201  note  r. 
Adelheid,  Queen,  84  and  note  h,  88. 
Adolf  of  Nassau,  Emp.,  229,  230,  278, 

525- 

Adso,  Abbot,  Vita  Antichristi  by, 
517-518. 

Aegidi,  cited,  360  note. 

Africa,  North,  Justinian's  reconquest 
of,  323. 

Aistulf,  King  of  the  Lombards,  39, 
40,  178. 

Aix-la-Chapelle,  see  Aachen. 

Alarich,  17;  Rome  captured  and 
sacked  by,  23-24,  285,  288. 

Alberic,  84  and  note*,  86,  291. 

Albert  I,  Emp.,  acknowledges  papal 
authority  over  German  crown, 
220-22 1 ;  recognition  of,  refused 
by  Boniface  VIII,  220  note*; 
contest  with  Adolf  of  Nassau, 
229;  tomb  of,  525;  otherwise 
mentioned,  109  note*,  184,  232, 
233  note*,  278,  521. 


Albert  II,  Emp.,  353,  358,  361  note, 
400,  402  note ',  525. 

Albigenses,  254. 

Alboin,  45. 

Alcuin  of  York,  59,  67,  97,  2O2, 
409. 

Alemanni,  34,  35. 

Alexander  II,  Pope,  109. 

Alexander  III,  Pope,  struggle  of, 
with  Frederick  I,  170-171;  de- 
clines proposals  of  Comnenus, 
343;  power  of,  424. 

Alexander  the  Great,  276,  281  note*. 

Alfanus  of  Salerno,  Abp.,  161,  519. 

Alfonso,  Emp.  (King  of  Castile), 
186,  214  and  note*,  240,  267 
note  P. 

Alfonso,  King  of  Naples,  263  note  J. 

Alsace,  183,  398. 

Alsace-Lorraine,  position  of,  in  Ger- 
man Empire,  485  note  b. 

Amals,  28. 

Ambrose,  Abp.,  12. 

America  — 

Christian  legends  in,  Spanish  efforts 

to  trace,  363  note. 
Discovery  of,  362. 
United    States    constitution    com- 
pared with  that  of  German  Em- 
pire, 485  and  note  a. 

Anastasius,  Emp.,  30,  161. 

Anjou,  1 85  note  f. 

Anselm,  Abp.,  218,  339. 

Antichrist,  516-517. 

Antinomianism,  381. 

Antiquity,  mediaeval  reverence  for, 
253,  267-268,  270-276;  in  East- 
ern Empire,  346. 

Apulia  — 

Norman    kingdom    of,    150,    158 

note  h. 
Papal  fief,  209. 

Aquinas,  St.  Thomas,  262,  339,  517. 


S4S 


546 


INDEX 


Aquitaine  — 

Athaulf's  rule  in,  30. 
Austrasian  victory  over,  73. 
Charles  the  Bald,  assigned  to,  78. 
Edward  III  declared  entitled   to, 

185  note*. 

Independence  of,  141. 
West    Gothic    kingdom  in,  over- 
thrown, 30,  35. 
Arabs,  326,  347  note. 
Aragon,  410. 
Arcadius,  Emp.,  24. 
Architecture  in  Rome,  310-312,  314- 

315;   Renaissance,  312-314. 
Ardoin,  Marquis  of  Ivrea,  148,  441. 
Arians  — 

Athanasius,  triumph  of,  over,  12. 
Gothic,  29,  36. 
Teutonic,  36,  334. 
Vandal,  312  note  J. 
Aries,  see  under  Burgundy,  kingdom 

of. 
Armenia  — 

Eastern  Emperors  of  race  of,  336. 
Eastern  Empire's  loss  of,  325. 
Rome,   dependence    on,    13   note, 

191. 

Arminius,  39. 

Arnold  of  Brescia,  reforms  preached 
by,  292;  death  of,  294;  career 
and  ideas  of,  523;  otherwise 
mentioned,  174,  199,  255,  261, 
268,  351. 

Arnulf,  Bp.  of  Orleans,  151  note. 
Arnulf,  Emp.,  79,  82,  525. 
Art  — 

Dark  ages  of,  314. 

German  representations  of  classic 

subjects,  276. 

Mediaeval,  symbolism  of,  115-118. 
Rome  the  metropolis  of,  287. 
Asia   Minor,  ruin   of,   325-326,  328 

note  d. 

Athanarich,  17. 
Athanasius,  St.,  12. 
Athaulf,  1 8,  30. 
Attila  the  Hun,  1 7,  23,  35. 
Augsburg  — 

Constitution  of  (1566),  184. 
Diet  at,  374,  386. 
Golden  Hall  of,  274. 
Augustine,  St.,  De   Civitate  Dei  of, 
94  note. 


Augustus,   Emp.,    frontier   policy  of, 

14. 

Austerlitz,  412. 
Austrasia,  victory  of,  over   Neustria, 

7.2-73- 
Austria  — 

Alliances  of,  401,  403  notem. 

Bismarck's  conciliatory  policy  tow- 
ards, 478  and  note l. 

Bohemia  acquired  by,  398. 

Claims  of,  to  represent  Roman 
Empire,  420. 

Exclusion  of,  from  scheme  of  uni- 
fied Germany,  469;  from  North 
German  Confederation,  479,  484. 

Galicia  seized  by  (1772),  184. 

German  subjects  of,  464-465,  480, 
492  note,  502. 

Germanic  Empire  merged  in,  361. 

Hapsburg,  founder  of  house  of, 
215  and  note. 

Hardenberg's  scheme  opposed  by, 

458-459. 

Hungary  acquired  by,  398. 
Kingdom  of,  created  by  Frederick 

III,  265  notem. 
Maximilian's  founding  of  monarchy 

of,  362. 
Papal  policy  of,  228,  373,  433-434, 

5°5- 

Presburg,  Peace  of,  412. 
Privilege  of,  200,  241  note  x. 
Prussian    hostility    to,   455 ;    war 

with,  477  note,  478. 
Reaction  in  (1850),  467. 
Regal  title  revived  by,  202  note  b. 
Schleswig-Holstein  question,  472- 

478. 

Succession,  war  of,  403-404. 
Traditions  of,  432-434. 
Avars,  37,  47,  324. 
Avignon  — 

French  acquisition  of,  530. 

Papal  seat  transferred  to,  221,  296, 

310  ;    subservience  of  Papacy  to 

France  due  to,  257. 

Baden  — 

Constitutional  policy  of,  466  note, 

468. 

Margrave  of,  245. 
North  Germany  —  isolation   from, 

480 ;  military  treaty  with,  480. 


INDEX 


547 


Baden  {continued)  — 

Representation     of,     on     Federal 
Council,  487. 

Rheinbund  joined  by,  414. 
Balance  of  power,  397. 
Baldwin,  Emp.,  526. 
Barbarians  — 

Church,  dependence  on,  19. 

Roman  civilization's  effect  on,  16—19. 

Rome's    peaceful    relations    with, 

14-16. 

Basel,  Council  of,  353  notes. 
Basel,  Peace  of,  455. 
Basil  the  Macedonian,  Emp.,  342. 
Basil  I,  Emp.,  332,  526. 
Basil  II,  Emp.,  325. 
Bauto,  34. 
Bavaria  — 

Agilolfings,  234  note. 

Austria  alienated  from,  473 ;  sup- 
ported by,  477. 

Electoral  privilege  of,  in  dispute, 
242-244. 

Electoral  vote  transferred  to,  387— 
388. 

French  relations  with,  398,  457. 

Hardenberg's  scheme  opposed  by, 

459- 

Napoleon's  relations  with,  457. 
North   Germany  —  isolation   from, 
479-480 ;    military   treaty   with, 
480-481. 

Privileges  of,  modern,  483,  484. 
Reform  Union  supported  by,  469. 
Representation     of,     on     Federal 

Council,  487. 
Rheinbund  joined  by,  414. 
Belisarius,  288  note*. 
Belleisle,  Marshal,  399,  403. 
Benedict  VIII,   Pope,   196-197  and 

note  h. 

Benedict  XII,  Pope,  225,  296. 
Benedict  of  Soracte,  cited,  5 1  note. 
Benevento  — 

Annals  of,  cited,  149. 

Duchy  of,  founded  by  Lombards, 

37- 
Berengar   of  Friuli,    Emp.,  83   and 

note,  84,  539. 

Berengar  II,  King  of  Italy,  84,  133. 
Berlin  — 

Revolution  of  1848,  465,  466  note. 
University  of,  499. 


Bernard  of  Clairvaux,  St.  175,  292 
note'\  351,  509,  520. 

Bismarck,  Prince,  military  policy  of, 
471-472  ;  Schleswig-Holstein 
question,  473-474 ;  conciliatory 
policy  of,  478  and  note*,  480, 
487-488,  503  note  ;  conflict  with 
Roman  Catholic  hierarchy,  494 ; 
statesmanship  of,  495. 

Blondel,  David,  200  and  note  *. 

Bogomiles,  332. 

Bohemia  — 

Austrian  acquisition  of,  398. 
Charles  IV's  policy  as  to,  250. 
Electoral  privilege  of,  in  dispute, 

242  and  note,  243. 
German  population  of,  479. 
Imperial   office   held  by  King  of, 

243  and  note. 

John,  King  of,  233. 

Otto's  influence  over,  144. 

Position  of,  in  twelfth  century,  183. 

Regal  title  in,  received  from  Em- 
peror, 265. 

Silesia  and   Moravia  acquired  by, 

184,  355- 

Thirty  Years'  War,  387,  389. 
Wenzel,  King  of,  230,  232,  250. 
Boleslas,  King  of  Poland,  184. 
Bologna  — 

Charles  V  crowned  at,  309  note,  369. 
Jurists  of,  268,  272  note  c. 
University  of,  222. 

Boniface  VIII,  Pope,  Unam  Sanctam 
bull  of,  1 08  note*  ;  offers  French 
throne  to  a  Hapsburg,  185 ; 
Albert  I's  submission  to,  221  ; 
refuses  to  recognize  Albert  I, 
221  notei ;  pretensions  of,  109 
and  note c,  224 ;  on  supremacy 
of  the  Emperor,  263  and  note ' ; 
quarrel  with  Philip  IV,  521  ; 
family  of,  525  ;  otherwise  men- 
tioned, 257,  297  note. 
Boniface,  St.  (Winfrith),  36,  155, 

333  note  \ 

Bonn  University,  499. 
Boso,  King  of  Cisjurane   Burgundy, 
82  and  note*,   141,  265   note m, 

530,  539- 
Brancaleone,  310. 
Brandenburg,    Electorate     of,    regal 

title  assumed  by  Elector  of,  398. 


548 


INDEX 


Brandenburg,  Margrave  of  — 
Electoral  privilege  of,  241,  242. 
Imperial  office  held  by,  243  and 

note. 

Brandenburg,  Margraviate  of  — 
Dominions  of,  450. 
Prussia,  East,  co-investiture  of,  ob- 
tained by,  451  note*. 
Brandenburg,  Mark  of,  founding  of, 

139,  502. 

Bremen,  180  note,  393,  483. 
Britain,  Charlemagne's  influence  in, 

70  (see  also  England). 
Brotherhood,  idea  of,   preserved   by 

Mediaeval  Empire,  440. 
Brunswick,     representation     of,     in 

Federal  Council,  487. 
Brunswick-Liineburg,  House  of,  244. 
Bulgarians  — 

Church  influence  on,  339. 
Conversion  of,  to  Christianity,  335, 

339- 
Eastern  Empire  harassed  by,  324, 

325,  346-347- 
Ottoman  rule  over,  336. 
Burgundians,  conversion  of,  to  Latin 

Christianity,  334. 
Burgundy,   Cisjurane,   82,  530-531  ; 

Otto's  government  of,  141. 
Burgundy,  Duchy  of — 

Charles  the  Bold's  proposal  as  to, 

265-266,  269  note  *. 
French  suzerainty  over,  357. 
Burgundy,  Free  County  of,  183,  398, 

53°- 

Burgundy,  Kingdom  of  (Aries)  — 
Avignon   in    the    bounds   of,   221 

note*. 
Chancellorship  of,   139  notes,  243 

and  note. 
Crown  of,  assumed  by  Emperors, 

»93»  539- 

Dependence  of,  35. 
Empire's  loss  of,  356-357. 
Equestrian  contest  at,  29  note. 
Extent  of,  183,  530. 
German  Empire  joined  by,  150. 
Lex    Romana    Burgundionum,   32 

note  h. 
Richard  I  of  England  invested  with, 

187. 
Burgundy,  territories  comprised  under 

the  term,  529-532. 


Burgundy,  Transjurane,  82,  530. 

Byzantine  Christianity,  see  Church, 
Eastern. 

Byzantine  Empire,  see  Eastern  Empire. 

Byzantium,  Imperial  residence  re- 
moved to,  8. 

Calixtus  II,  Pope,  164. 

Campagna,  unhealthiness  of,  138. 

Campo  Formio,  312. 

Canon  Law,  101-102,  348,  436  note. 

Canosa,  castle  of,  1 60  note  k. 

Caracalla,  Emp.,  5. 

Carinthia,  479,  492  note. 

Carlsbad  Conference,  461. 

Castruccio  Castracani,  223,  224. 

Catalonia,  410. 

Cathari,  255. 

Cavour,  497,  500. 

Chalons,  battle  of,  35. 

Chambord,  Count  of,  421  note. 

Charlemagne,  see  Charles  the  Great, 
Emp. 

Charles  the  Great,  Emp.  (Charle- 
magne) ,  assumes  Lombard  crown, 
41;  succours  Pope  Leo  III,  44, 
48;  crowned  at  Rome  (800),  2, 
48  and  note*,  49,  58-60  and 
notei,  154-155,261, 283,343-344; 
significance  of  the  coronation, 
50-53  ;  its  slight  effect  on  the 
Eastern  Empire,  322,  342 ;  ac- 
counts of  the  ceremony,  53-56; 
later  theories,  57  ;  reluctance  to 
assume  imperial  title,  60-6 1; 
ecclesiastical  authority  resultant, 
65—66;  anecdotes  cited,  51  note; 
crowns  his  son  Lewis,  61,  77; 
negotiations  with  Irene,  61-62; 
ecclesiastical  authority  of,  64-67, 
1 06  note,  349;  Capitulary  of 
802,  66-67;  wide  influence  of, 
70-71;  personal  habits  and  sym- 
pathies of,  71-72;  versatility  of, 
74-75 ;  Augustine's  influence  on, 
94  note;  seal  of,  103  and  note; 
feudalism  under,  122;  empire  of, 
compared  with  Otto's,  142-144; 
finding  of  body  of,  by  Otto  III, 
147  and  note,  538  notef;  Transla- 
tion of  the  Empire  theory,  219- 
221;  decides  against  Rome  as  a 
seat  of  government,  290;  missi 


INDEX 


549 


of,  329;  Napoleon's  parallel 
with,  408-410,  528;  military 
theocracy  under,  419;  the  Irm- 
insul  destroyed  by,  516;  titles 
°f»  535  5  basilica  of,  75  and  note*, 
525 ;  sarcophagus  of,  5 16;  canon- 
ization of,  75,  177  note;  other- 
wise mentioned,  137,  156,  157, 
191,  196  note*,  315  note,  337, 
361,  437,  443,  503  note,  522. 
Charles  IV,  Emp.,  Italian  rights 
abandoned  by,  228 ;  electoral 
constitution  of,  233,  243,  248- 
249;  Golden  Bull  of,  243,  250; 
Maximilian's  estimate  of,  249 
note;  characteristics  and  policy 
of,  250;  Petrarch's  attitude  tow- 
ards, 270;  Bohemian  privileges 
granted  by,  355;  founds  Uni- 
versity of  Prague,  250  and  note  f, 
365;  tomb  of,  525;  otherwise 
mentioned,  184,  185,  231,  280, 

524- 

Charles  V,  Emp.,  financial  straits  of, 
233  note^;  rivalry  with  Francis 
I  of  France,  267  note?;  corona- 
tion of,  309  note,  369;  Rome 
sacked  by  soldiers  of,  312  and 
note*,  373;  dominions  of,  371, 
372;  characteristics  of,  372;  hesi- 
tation as  to  election  of,  372  noteb; 
supports  Papacy  against  reform- 
ers, 373-374;  repressive  policy 
a  failure,  374;  tomb  of,  525; 
titles  of,  537;  otherwise  men- 
tioned, 190,  315,  361  note,  421, 

S3'- 

Charles  VI,  Emp.,  400,  403,  404. 
Charles  VII,    Emp.,    399,    403-404, 

525- 

Charles  IV,  King  of  France,  222. 
Charles  V,  King  of  France,  185. 
Charles  VIII,  King  of  France,  368. 
Charles,  Count  of  Anjou,  211,  212. 
Charles,  Count  of  Valois,  231. 
Charles,  King  of  Bohemia,  298. 
Charles  Martel,  36,  39. 
Charles  the  Bald,  Emp.,  78,  79  note, 

85    note),  138,    156,   265  notem, 

525. 
Charles   the   Bold,  Duke  of  French 

Burgundy,   265-266,   269   note*, 

357.  531- 


Charles  the  Fat,  Emp.,  79,  141,  525. 
Charles   the    Simple,  King   of  West 

Franks,  141. 
Chemnitz   (Hippolytus),  treatise  of, 

cited,  390-391. 
Childeric,  39. 
Chivalry,  see  Knighthood. 
Christian  IX,  King  of  Denmark,  393, 

472,  474,  475- 

Christianity  (see  also  Church)  — 
America,    in,    Spanish     efforts    to 

trace  legends  of,  363  note. 
Latin  form  of,  developed,  26. 
Mohammedan  taunt  of  idolatry 

against,  38. 
Roman     citizenship    conterminous 

with,  12,  81,  93  and  note*. 
Roman  Emperors,  under,  9. 
Roman  Empire  saved  by,  333-334. 
State,  alliance  with,  9—11. 
Unifying  influence  of,  92,  93. 
Church,  Eastern  — 
Bogomiles,  332. 
Controversies  in,  332, 339-340, 341- 

342. 

Doctrinal  orthodoxy  the  central  ele- 
ment in,  339-340,  349. 
Iconoclastic  controversy,  38-39,  46, 

65,  154,  34L 
Latin  Church  — 

Hostility  to,  341-342. 

Severance  from,  effect  of,  192- 
193,  197  note). 

Union  with,  attempted,  333  note  h. 
Modern  position  of,  339,  351. 
Monophysites,  332. 
Photian  schism,  86. 
Procession  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  con- 
troversy as  to,  86,  342. 
Subservience    of,    to    State,    335, 

334-340. 
Church,  Latin  (see  also  Papacy  and 

Popes)  — 

Arians,  see  that  title. 
Barbarian  dependence  on,  19. 
Bishops  — 

Charlemagne's  relations  with,  51 
note. 

Position  of,  in  the  apse,  515. 
Canon  law,  101-102,  348,  436  note. 
Change  in,  315-316. 
Charlemagne's  authority  in,  64-67, 

1 06  note,  349. 


550 


INDEX 


Church,  Latin  (continued')  — 
Clergy  — 

Celibacy   of,  Hildebrandine   re- 

forms as  to,  158. 
Corruption  of,  255,  257-258,  292. 
France,  in,  national  feeling  of, 

218. 
German  — 

Charles  V's  relations  with,  373. 
Papacy,  relations  with,  360. 
Position  of,  217-218. 
Investiture  of,  struggle   regard- 

ing, 163-164. 
Property-holding  by,  condemned 

by  Marsilius,  226. 
College  of  Cardinals,  factions  in,  257. 
Concrete  habit  of  mind  regarding, 

96-97,  99. 
Council    of   Constance,    see    Con- 

stance. 
Council   of   Florence,  333    noteb, 


Council  of  Jerusalem,  95. 
Council  of  Trent,  95. 
Crusades,  see  that  title, 
Disappointment   excited  by,  257- 

258. 

Dogma,  growing  rigidity  of,  95. 
Dominicans,  205. 
Eastern  Church,  relations  with,  see 

under  Church,  Eastern. 
Empire  — 

Alliance  with,  9-11,  96. 
Authority  assumed  by,  11-12,  23, 

64-68,  1  06  note,  143. 
Close   connection   with,  46  and 

note  °,  47,  67-68. 

Interdependence  with,  102-103. 
Parallelism   with,  93-94,  97~99, 

104-107,  127,  201-202,  264. 
Peculiarity  of  relations  with,  402 

note  k. 
Reforms   effected  by  Emperors, 

204,  291,  348  note,  436-437- 
Separation  from,  during  Middle 

Ages,  380. 
Support  to,  343-344. 
Union  with,  107-108  note?. 
Variety  of  relations  with,  436- 

439- 
False    Decretals,    156   and   note%, 

196,  422. 
Franciscans,  see  that  title. 


Church,  Latin  (continued}  — 
Friars,  344. 
Government  of,  II;   State  control 

of,  73- 
Iconoclastic  controversy,  38-39, 46, 

65,  154.  341- 

Imaginative  vision  of,  345-346. 
Intolerance   of,  excuses  for,  383- 

384- 

Jesuits,  376. 

Marsilius'  writings  on,  226. 

Mediaeval  conception  of,  423-424. 

Monasteries,  Charlemagne's  at- 
tempt to  regulate,  67. 

Oecumenical  councils,  94,  352. 

Organization  of,  349-350. 

Organization,  political,  capacity  for, 
204. 

Otto  the  Great's  policy  towards, 
127-128,  143,  1 66,  204. 

Popes,  see  that  title. 

Real  Presence  controversy,  227 
note  b. 

Reform  of,  by  Emperors,  204. 

Reformation,  the,  see  that  title. 

Revolt  of  mind  against,  254-255. 

Rome  the  recognized  centre  of 
(fifth  cent.),  31  and  note,  34. 

Schism  of  1378,  105  noteu,  228  and 
note,  310-311,  353  note*. 

Simony,  151,  158  and  note'1;  de- 
nounced by  Arnold  of  Brescia, 
292. 

Teutonic  nations  converted  to,  334. 

Tithes,  compulsory  payment  of,  67. 

Transubstantiation,  establishment 
of  dogma  of,  378  note. 

Unity  of,  surviving  fifth  century,  94. 

Visibility  of  — 

Degeneracy  into  a  hierarchy  re- 
sultant from,  377. 
Influence  of  idea  of,  96, 99,  422- 

423- 

Necessity  of,  supposed,  339. 

Reformers'  attitude  towards,  379. 
Wealth  of,  508. 
Church,  problem  of  State  connection 

with,  340-341. 

Churches,  national,  rise  of,  382-385. 
Civilis,  108. 

Clement  IV,  Pope,  212. 
Clement  V,  Pope,  22 1,  279. 
Clement  VI,  Pope,  224,  226,  298. 


INDEX 


551 


Clement  VII,  Pope,  309  note,  373. 

Clement  XI,  Pope,  452. 

Clergy,  see  under  Church,  Latin. 

Clovis,  Roman  honours  prized  by, 
17,  30;  Aquitaine  acquired  by, 
35  ;  called  '  patrician,'  40 ; 
feudalism  under,  122. 

Cluny,  Abbey  of,  152  note. 

Cologne,  Abp.  of,  electoral  privilege 
of,  241  and  note11;  Napoleon's 
extinction  of,  245. 

Coloniae,  5. 

Colonna  family,  301,  302. 

Colonna,  John,  Petrarch's  letters  to, 
286  and  note  c. 

Colonna,  Sciarra,  222,  223,  297. 

Columban,  St.,  333  note1. 

Comnenus,  line  of,  332. 

Comnenus,  Manuel,  Emp.,  326,  343. 

Concrete  thinking,  mediaeval  ten- 
dency towards,  96-97,  99. 

Conrad  I,  King,  chosen  King  of 
Germany,  80 ;  not  reckoned 
Emperor  by  Italian  writers,  195 
note*;  tomb  of,  525;  otherwise 
mentioned,  121,  141,  501,  535. 

Conrad  II,  Emp.  (the  Salic),  styled 
'Vicar  of  God,'  213;  Aries 
acquired  during  reign  of,  1 50  ; 
coronation  of,  187  note);  elec- 
tion of,  235  and  note,  238  ;  tomb 
of,  524  ;  Burgundy  acquired  by, 
530  ;  Denmark  under  suzerainty  , 
of,  533 ;  otherwise  mentioned, 
149.  I93»  !99,  259  note. 

Conrad  III,  Emp.,  anti-papal  attitude 
of,  1 66 ;  Roman  overtures  to, 
175,  294  ;  tomb  of,  525  ;  other- 
wise mentioned,  187,  342—343. 

Conrad  IV,  Emp.,  struggle  of,  with 
the  Papacy,  209 ;  tomb  of,  524  ; 
otherwise  mentioned,  211,  213, 
215  note. 

Conrad,  Abp.  of  Mentz,  206. 

Conrad  of  Hohenzollern,  451. 

Conrad  the  Pacific,  King  of  Burgundy, 

530- 
Conradin,  Emp.,  190,  209,  211,  212, 

215  note. 
Constance,  Council  of,  ill,  228,  269, 

352,  353  no/eb,  402  note*. 
Constans  II,  Emp.,  337  note. 
Constantjne,   Emp.,   officialdom    de- 


veloped by,  7-8,  129,  272-273  ; 
removal  to  Byzantium,  8 ;  em- 
braces Christianity,  9 ;  use  of 
title  '  patrician '  by,  40 ;  styled 
lo-air6ffTo\os,  330  note*;  other- 
wise mentioned,  26,  514. 
Constantine,  Donation  of,  43,  101- 
102,  153,  220  note*,  277  notem, 
283,  284,  302,  308  note1, 515,  518, 

523- 
Constantine  VI,  Emp.,  46,   47,   64, 

65. 

Constantinople  — 
Civil  service  of,  329. 
Consulship,    perpetuation   of,  421 

note. 

Crusaders'  siege  of,  326. 
Invaders  at  the  walls  of,  325. 
Latin   Emperors  at    (1204-1261), 

326. 

Literary  activity  in,  350  note. 
Ottoman  capture  of  (1453),  326, 

354,  363- 

Rome  contrasted  with,  348-349. 
Strength  of,  327-328. 
Coronations,   superstitions    attaching 

to,  198  note  m. 
Coronations  of  Emperors  — 

Ceremonies  of,  111-112,  305  and 
note,  308-309,  517,  522,  526- 
527. 

Four,  192-195.  538-539- 
Knighthood,    at    altar    of   patron 

saint  of,  266  note0. 
Lodging  in  Chambers  of  Augustus 

and  Livia,  273. 
Rome,  last  in,  356. 
Throne  used  at,  538  note*. 
Corpus  Juris,  172,  260,  273,  365, 436; 

Novels  in,  273. 

Crescentius,  145,  147,  304  note  . 
Critical  spirit,  absence  of,  in  Middle 

Ages,  276. 
Crowns,  four,  192-194  and  notes,  538- 

539- 
Crusades  — 

Alienation  of  Empire  and  Papacy 

during,  164-165. 

Eastern      Empire      attacked      by 
Crusaders  (1204),  191,  326,  341. 
Papal  supremacy  in,  205. 
Roman  people's  neglect  of,  301. 
Cyprus,  191. 


552 


INDEX 


Danes,  ravages  of  (ninth  century),  79. 

Dante,  on  Frederick  II,  208 ;  De 
Monarchia,  278  and  note  &,  280— 
284;  monarchical  ideal  of,  319  ; 
otherwise  mentioned,  271-272, 

295»  3i8,  355»  5°7.   5°9.   S13> 
518. 

Danubian  races,  335,  336. 
Dauphine,  183,  356,  530. 
De  Civitate  Dei,  94  note. 
De  Monarchia,  278  and  note*,  280- 

284. 

Decius,  Emp.,  u. 
Denmark  — 

Empire,  relations  with,  184-185. 
Holstein's  acquisition  of,  398. 
King  of,  a  member  of  German  Diet, 

393.  533- 
Orkney   and   Shetland    ceded   by, 

451  note*. 
Schleswig-Holstein  question,  471- 

475.  533-534- 

Diaz,  Bartholomew,  362  note. 
Diocletian,  Emp.,  6  note  c,  7,  24. 
Divine    right   theory,    112-115,  260, 

'    435»  4°6  note. 
Dominicans,  205. 
Du  Bois,  Peter,  521. 

Eastern  Church,  see  Church,  Eastern. 

Eastern  Empire,  see  Empire,  Eastern. 

Edgar,  King  of  England,  142. 

Edith,  sister  of  Athelstan,  142. 

Edward  II,  King  of  England,  187. 

Edward  III,  King  of  England,  foreign 
territories  adjudged  to,  185  note''; 
refuses  homage  to  Lewis  the 
Bavarian,  188  and  note P;  nomi- 
nated German  Emperor,  231, 
267  note?. 

Egypt,  Eastern  Empire's  loss  of,  325, 

332.  338. 

Election  of  Emperors  — 
Disputes  as  to,  234,  239. 
Literature  on,  237  notem. 
Majority    required    for,    238   and 

note,  243. 
Mode  of,  237-240. 
Papal  claims  as  to,  220,  349,  522. 
Popular  view  of,  249-250. 
Praetaxation,  238. 
Roman  authority  required  for,  317 

note. 


Election  of  Emperors  {continued}  — 
Sachsenspiegel  on,  197  note1. 
Status  of  electors,  273  note  h. 
Elective  principle,  growth  of,  in  Ger- 
many, 234-237. 
Elsass-Lothringen,     position    of,    in 

German  Empire,  485  note*1. 
Emperor,  meaning  of  term,  537-538. 
Emperors,    Eastern    {for  particular 
Emperors  see   their   names)  — 
Coronation  of,  522,  526—527. 
Position  of,  compared  with  that  of 

Western,  348. 

Succession  of,  no  rule  as  to,  331. 
Emperors,  Western    {for  particular 

Emperors  see  their  names)  — 
Church,  relations  with,  see  under 

Church,  Latin. 
Coronation  of,  see  that  title. 
Crowns  of.  192-194  and  note,  538- 

539- 

Divine  right  of,  see  that  title. 
Duties  of,  three  main,  258. 
Election  of,  see  that  title. 
Eligibility  for   office  of,  267  and 

note,  522. 

Honours  dispensed  by,  8. 
Impotence  of  (eighteenth  century), 

400. 
Kissing  of  feet  of,  188  and  note*, 

SIS- 

Law  personified  by,  264. 

Lofty  standard  of,  427-428. 

'  Lords  of  the  World,'  194,  260. 

Nationality,  aristocracy,  and  popu- 
lar freedom  opposed  by,  440— 
441. 

Papacy  reformed  by,  204,  291,  348 
note,  437. 

Personal  supremacy  of,  4,  21—22. 

Portraits  of,  408  and  note*'. 

Position  of — in  Middle  Ages,  104 
et  seq. ;  after  the  Reformation, 

385- 

Protestant  taunts  against,  390. 

Reformation's  effect  on  position  of, 
385-386. 

Religion  of,  question  of,  after  the 
Reformation,  402  note*. 

Reser-vata  of,  under  Peace  of  West- 
phalia, 392. 

Resistance  to,  a  mortal  sin,  277 
and  note  °. 


INDEX 


553 


Emperors,  Western  (continued}  — 
Revenue  of  (1764),  405  note  ">. 
Rights  and  privileges  of,  265-266. 
Rome  — 

Memorials  in,  306-309. 

Visits  to,  303-306. 
Succession  of — 

Elective,  not  hereditary,  419. 

Uninterrupted,    mediaeval    view 

as  to,  274. 

Title  of,  not  assumed  till  after  Ro- 
man coronation,  195. 
Titles  of,  see  that  title. 
Tombs  of,  524-525. 
Wahlcapitulation,    restrictions    of, 

372  note  a,  399-400,  402  note1. 
Empire,  Eastern  — 

Antiquarianism  of,  346. 
Army  of,  328,  329. 
Benevento,  recognized  at,  149. 
Bibliography  on,  321  note. 
Character   of,  in    eighth    century, 

46. 
Church  subservience  to,  335,  337- 

340. 

Civil  service  of,  329. 
Coronation  of  Emperors,  522,  526- 

527- 
Crusaders'    overthrow    of    (1204), 

I9!».326'   34i- 

Despotic  government  of,  332—333. 
Effects  of  founding  of,  26. 
Greek  fire  used  by,  330  and  note6. 
Historians  on,  321  and  note. 
Imagination  lacked  by,  346,  350— 

351- 

Irene's  rule  in,  47. 

Italian  secession  from,  64. 

Navy  of,  329. 

Sanction  of,  desired  by  Charle- 
magne, 61-62  and  note0. 

Struggles  of,  against  northern  and 
southern  invaders,  322,  326, 
336. 

Succession  of  Emperors,  no  rule 
as  to,  331. 

Syria  and  Egypt  lost  by,  325,  332, 

338,  347- 
Unity  of,  327. 

Venetian  allegiance  to,  191. 
Western  Empire  — 

Claims  admitted  by,  27,  29  and 
note,  30,  43,  322. 


Empire,  Eastern  (continued)  — 

Recognition  of,  usually  refused,  6* 
note°-(>4,  140,  192. 

Rivalry  with,  322,  342. 
Empire,  Holy  Roman  — 

Balance  of  power  dependent  on, 
397-398. 

Church,  relations  with,  see  under 
Church,  Latin. 

Creation  of,  80. 

End  of,  with  beginning  of  Austrian 
monarchy,  362,  415. 

End  of,  in  1806,  i,  245. 

Eternity  of,  ideas  as  to,  276-277. 

Evolution  of,  424-425. 

Explanations  of,  inadequate,  445. 

Foreign  nominees  for,  521. 

Germanic,  rather  than  Holy  Ro- 
man, 360,  364. 

Idea  of  world  empire,  influence  of, 
439-440. 

Imaginative  vision  of,  345-346. 

International  character  of,  358. 

Literature  bearing  on,  543. 

Opinion  the  basis  of,  424. 

Papacy,  relations  with,  see  under 
Church,  Latin  sub-heading  Em- 
pire. 

Policy  of,  under  Saxons  and  Swa- 
bians  as  compared  with  Haps- 
burg  policy,  433-434- 

Rome,  last  link  with,  snapped,  392. 

Sun  and  moon  argument,  283,  522— 

523- 
Title  of — 

Adoption  of,  199-203. 

Change   in   (fifteenth  century), 

368-369- 
Voltaire  on,  216. 
Utrecht,  not  represented  at  (1713), 

400  note. 
Empire,   Roman    (second   century), 

see  that  title. 

Engilenheim,  72  and  note  a. 
England  — 

Aethelings,  234  note. 

'Basileis'  of,  142  and note\  275. 

Consolidation  of,  in  Middle  Ages, 

490. 
Empire  — 

Dissolution   of,   not    recognized 

by,   416   note0. 
Relations  with,  187-189. 


554 


INDEX 


England  (continued}  — 
Ermine  Street,  516. 
Feudalism  in,  130,  395. 
Financial  policy  of  Henry  II,  232. 
Hanoverian    Elector's   acquisition 

of,   398. 
Kings  of — 

Capacity  of,  compared  with  that 

of  German  monarchs,  246. 
Power   of  (thirteenth  century), 

217-218. 
Titles  assumed  by,  142  andnote^, 

263  note\  275,  421  note. 
Vote   of,   at    Imperial    election, 

244-245. 

Law,  local  customary,  in,  435. 
Parliament  of,  ^38  note*. 
Religious  conflict  in,  end  of,  386. 
Schleswig-Holstein   question,    474 

note. 

Tudors  established  in,  354. 
Enzio,  King  of  Sardinia,  265  note™. 
Erfurt  University,  250  note*. 
Ernest  Augustus,  King  of  Hanover, 

464  and  note. 

Eudes,  Count  of  Champagne,  150. 
Eudes,  King  of  France,  140. 
Eugenius  III,  Pope,  169  noteb,  523. 

Ferdinand  I,  Emp.,  535,  536. 
Ferdinand  II,  Emp.,  236  note"*-,  244, 

387»  391- 

Ferdinand  III,  Emp.,  388. 
Ferdinand,  Archduke  of  Austria,  245 

note  b,  387. 

Ferdinand  the  Great  of  Castile,  186. 
Ferrara,    Ecclesiastical    Council     at 

(1439).  333  «<^h- 
Feudalism  — 

Chivalry,   orders   of,    in    harmony 

with,  266. 
Eastern      Empire's      organization 

contrasted  with,  329. 
Ecclesiastics'  position  in,  67. 
England,  in,  130,  395. 
France,  in,  results  of,  123,  395. 
Germany,   in,    122-127,    I29~I3°> 

165,    232,   395,   436   note,   440- 

441. 

Imperial  office  transformed  by,  129. 
Mediaeval  institution  of,  91. 
Modifications  in,  owing  to  Imperial 

ideas,  435. 


Feudalism  (continued} — 
Nature  of,  122-126. 
Papal   supremacy    deduced    from 

theory  of,  197. 
Rome   never    enthralled  by,   301, 

316. 

Financial   condition   of  the    Empire 
(fourteenth    and  fifteenth    cen- 
turies), 232-233. 
Flanders,  see  Netherlands. 
Florence  — 

Ecclesiastical   Council   at    (1439), 

333  note  h,  353  note  b. 
Fresco  at,  117-118. 
Imperial  authority  not  repudiated 

by  (fifteenth  century),  355. 
Imperial  conquest  of,  318. 
Trade  of,  300-301. 
Foreigners,  ancient  attitude  towards, 

92  and  note  d. 
Formosus,  Pope,  79. 
France  — 

Basel,  Peace  of,  455. 
Burgundy  acquired  by,  357. 
Capetian  line,  rise  of,  140-141. 
Claims  of,  to  protectorate  of  Latin 

races,  420  and  note. 
Clergy  in,  national  feeling  of,  218. 
Consolidation  of,  in  Middle  Ages, 

490. 

Extent  of  (1804),  412. 
Feudalism  in,  results  of,  123,  395. 
French  Empire  distinguished  from, 

412. 
Germany  — 

Aggressions  on,  464. 
Awe  inspired  in,  430. 
Electors  of,  warned  as  to  heredi- 
tary succession,  402-403. 
Hohenstaufen    Emperors,    rela- 
tions with,  185. 
Influence  in,  450,  492. 
Literary    development  of,  com- 
pared with  that  of  France,  432. 
Napoleon's    policy  as   to,  413- 

4i5- 
Protestant  princes,  alliance  with, 

376. 
'  Holy   Empire  '   title,   resentment 

at,  203. 
Imperial  crown  offered  to   Robert 

of,  211. 
Imperialism  in,  428. 


INDEX 


555 


France  (continued) — 
Kings  of  — 

Capacity  of,  compared  with  that 

of  German  monarchs,  246. 
'  Majesty,'  title  of,  allowed  to,  263 

note*. 
Power    of  (thirteenth  century), 

216-217. 

Lorraine,  acquisitions  in,  393,  398. 
Papacy,  subservience  of,  while  at 

Avignon,  257. 

Peasantry  in,  bondage  of,  123. 
Predominance  of,  rise  of,  354. 
Prussia  — 

Hatred  against,  457. 
War  with  (1870),  481-482,  504. 
Reaction  in  (1850),  467. 
Religious  conflict  in,  end  of,  386. 
Reunions,  398. 

Rhine  lands  annexed  by,  245  note  b. 
Rome     occupied     by,     318-319; 

evacuated,  504. 

Strength  of,  in  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury, 521. 

Valland  a  name  for,  368  note^. 
Westphalia,  Peace  of,  acquisitions 

under,  393. 

Franche  Comte,  183,  398,  350. 
Francia  Occidentalis,  78,  79  note,  82. 
Francis  I,  Emperor,  403,  454  note. 
Francis  II,   Emperor,  408,  414  and 

note**,  415  and  note. 
Francis,  Emperor  of  Austria,  461. 
Francis  Joseph,  Emperor  of  Austria, 

470-471. 
Francis  I,  King  of  France,  203  noted, 

263  note*,  267  noteP,  371. 
Franciscans  — 

Founding  of  Order  of,  205. 
Quarrel  of,  with  Pope  John  XXII, 

222. 
Frankfort  — 

Coronations  at,  538  and  note*,  540. 
Elections  of  Emperors  at,  243. 
Fiirsten  Congress  at  (1863),  470- 

471. 
National    Parliament    at     (1848), 

466-467,  488,  498. 
Portraits  of  Emperors  at,  408  and 

note  a. 
Prussian    annexation  of,  1 80  note, 

245  note  a,  478. 
Synod  at  (794),  65. 


Franks  — 

Justinian's  transfer  of  South-East- 

ern  Gaul  to,  29  note. 
Law,  Roman,  adopted  by,  32  note  \ 
League  of,  35. 
Name  of,  141  note. 
Papacy  championed  by,  36,  39-40, 

47»  334- 

Sicambrian  source  of,  34. 
Supremacy  of,  70,  72,  73. 

Frederick  I,  Emp.  (Barbarossa), 
letter  of,  to  German  prelates, 
no;  German  estimate  of,  167, 
177;  contest  with  Pope  Hadrian 
IV,  169-170;  contest  with  Pope 
Alexander  III,  170-171;  deal- 
ings with  Lombard  cities,  172, 
I75~I79»  3435  election  of,  174 
noteh,  235  note,  228,  241;  in 
North  Italy,  174;  Roman  depu- 
tation to,  174,  294;  position  of, 
as  German  king,  179-181;  at- 
tempts on  Hungary,  183;  re- 
ceives Danish  homage,  184-185; 
letter  to  Saladin,  191  and  note ; 
jurists'  reply  to,  194;  title  of 
'  Holy  Empire '  first  in  reign  of, 
199  and  note?;  on  Rome,  169, 
305  note,  306;  Roman  strong- 
holds destroyed  by,  310;  Privi- 
lege of  Austria  granted  by,  241 
and  note  x ;  reply  to  envoys  of 
Isaac  Angelus,  343;  castles  of, 
179,  520;  extent  of  territories 
of,  182-183;  death  of,  180  and 
note;  tomb  of,  525;  legend  of 
magic  sleep  of,  181  and  note; 
title  of,  540  note;  character- 
istics of,  170,  179;  otherwise 
mentioned,  186,  187,  193,  318, 
356,  451,  523,  527. 

Frederick  II,  Emp.,  Hungary  re- 
covered from  Mongols  by,  183; 
election  of,  187;  title  'Holy 
Empire'  employed  by,  201-202; 
chosen  King  of  the  Romans, 
206;  description  of,  in  Liber 
Augustalis,  207  note;  Otto  IV 
dethroned  by,  207 ;  struggle  with 
the  Papacy,  208-211,438;  papal 
hatred  of,  221  note^;  Pragmatic 
Sanctions  of  (1220  and  1232), 
213,  229;  makes  Austria  a  king- 


556 


INDEX 


dom,  265  notem;  title  assumed 
by»  369;  inscription  in  Rome 
commemorating  Milanese  vic- 
tory of,  308;  date  of  death  of, 
182;  burial-place  of,  208  «0/<?b, 
525;  legend  of  reappearance  of, 
181  note ;  personality  of,  207- 
208;  otherwise  mentioned,  190, 
200,  215,  355,  390,  441,  448,  522. 

Frederick  III,  Emp.,  papal  policy 
of,  228;  coronation  of,  309;  re- 
ceives Lombard  crown,  355; 
financial  straits  of,  233;  Charles 
the  Bold's  application  to,  regard- 
ing Burgundy,  266,  269  note  i;  in 
exile,  278;  tomb  of,  525;  other- 
wise mentioned,  231,  263  note), 
280,  352,  353,  356,  361  note. 

Frederick,  Duke  of  Austria,  221-222, 
229. 

Frederick,  Elector  of  Brandenburg, 
Burggrave  of  Niirnberg,  450  and 
note,  451,  452. 

Frederick,  Emperor  of  Germany,  503 
note,  504. 

Frederick,  King  of  Bohemia,  244. 

Frederick  VII,  King  of  Denmark, 
471—472  and  note. 

Frederick  I,  King  of  Prussia,  265 
notem,  452-453- 

Frederick  II  (the  Great),  King  of 
Prussia,  Silesia  seized  by,  397  ; 
in  Seven  Years'  War,  404 ; 
Furstenbund  formed  by,  406, 
531;  characteristics  and  policy 
of,  396,  453-455,498;  otherwise 
mentioned,  405  and  note  n. 

Frederick,  Prince  of  Augustenburg, 
472  and  note,  473-476. 

Frederick  William  I,  King  of  Prussia, 

453- 
Frederick     William     II,     King     of 

Prussia,  455. 
Frederick    William     III,    King    of 

Prussia,  457,  498. 
Frederick    William     IV,     King     of 

Prussia,  465,  466  and  note,  498. 
Friars,  344. 
Friedland,  battle  of,  456. 

Gaiserich,  the  Vandal,  288,  312  note  J. 
Galicia,  184,  433. 
Gall,  St.,  333  note ». 


Gama,  Vasco  de,  362  note. 

Gastein,     Convention     of,    476-477 

note. 
Gelasius  I,  Pope,  22  note0,  161,  519- 

520. 
Genoa,   trade    of,   300,    328    note d, 

344- 

Gentz,  Frederick  von,  458-459. 
George  Podiebrad,  King  of  Bohemia, 

231,  278. 

George  William,  Elector  of  Branden- 
burg, 452. 
Gerbert  of  Aurillac  (Pope  Sylvester 

II),  144. 

German  Empire  {see  also  Germany)  — 
Administration  of,  485,  489,  505. 
Army  of,  493. 
Chancellor,  position  of,  485,  487, 

489. 

Constitution  of,  482. 
Diet    (Reichstag),    488-489    and 

note. 

Education  in,  505. 
Emperor,  position  of,  486 ;  title  of, 

503  and  note. 

Federal  Council  (Bundesrath)  — 
Constitution  of,  485  note b,  486- 

488. 

Emperor's  influence  in,  486. 
Federal  government  — 
Organization  of,  486. 
States'  governments,  relation  to, 

484-485. 
Foreign   affairs,  conduct   of,  486, 

489. 
France,  war  with  (1870),  481-482, 

5°4- 
Industrial    development    of,  494- 

495.  505-506- 

Judicial  administration  in,  485. 
Legislature,  486-489. 
Nationality,    sentiment    of,    495— 

496. 

Officials,  ability  of,  489. 
Pan-Germanic  sentiment,  492. 
Particularism,  495. 
Party  spirit  in,  484. 
Reichsgericht,  485. 
Socialism  in,  494. 
Germans  — 

Laws   of,   reduced   to  writing   by 

Charlemagne,  73  note. 
Praetorian  Guard  selected  from,  1 5. 


INDEX 


557 


Germany  {see  also  German  Empire  ; 

and  for  kingdoms,  provinces,  <SrV., 

see  their  names)  — 
Anti-clericalism  of,  78,  165,  437. 
Archchancellor  of,  243  and  note. 
Arnulf,  King  of,  79,  82. 
Aulic  Council  (Hofrath),  366-367, 

392. 

Bigotry  of,  373. 

Cities  of,  see  sub-heading  Towns. 
Clergy    in,    see    under    Church  — 

Clergy. 

'  College  of  Princes,'  1 79. 
Commercial  Law,  code  of,  468. 
Commons,    Crown    supported    by, 

I3i- 
Confederation,     Act     of     (1815), 

459- 
Confederation  (1855-1866)  — 

Diet  under,  460,  471. 

German  Empire  a  development 
of,  483- 

Inadequacy  of,  468. 

Inception  of,  416-417. 

London,  Treaty  of,  not  binding 
on,  473  note. 

Re-establishment  of  (1851),  467. 

Vienna  Final  Act,  modifications 

by,  461. 
Confederation  of  the   Rhine,  414 

and  note *,  456. 

Conservatism  of  people  of,  396. 
Constitution  of — 

Chemnitz  on,  391. 

Golden  Bull  of  Charles  IV,  see 
that  title. 

Reform  of,  attempted  (fifteenth 

century),  365-367. 
Counts    Palatine,     institution     of, 

124. 
Culture    centred   in,  under    Otto, 

142. 

Denationalization  of,  449. 
Diet,  the  — 

Constitution   of,   367;    original, 
395-396. 

Contemptibility  of,  399. 

Cumbrous  methods  of,  358. 

Federal,  460,  471. 

Foreign  members  of,  393. 

Modern  prolongation  of,  in  the 
Bundesrath,  486. 

Relics  of,  404-406. 


Germany  —  Diet,  the  {continued')  — 
Rights  of,  settled  at  Peace  of 

Westphalia,  391-392. 
Tenth     century,     condition    in, 

125. 
Towns  represented  in,  323  note f, 

3.67,  38i. 
Division  of,  into  two  factions  at  the 

Reformation,  375-376. 
Dukes  in,  124. 

Elections,  mode  of,  237-238. 
Elective  principle  in  — 
Difficulties  of,  245-246. 
Establishment  of,  165-166. 
Growth  of,  234-237,  240. 
Electoral  body  in  — 

Bavaria,  vote  transferred  to,  387- 

388. 
Eighth    and   ninth    electorates, 

244. 

Evolution  of,  235-241. 
French  warnings   to,  as  to  he- 
.     reditary  succession,  402-403. 
Kurfurstenverein,  358. 
Popular  element,  elimination  ofj 

247. 

Seven    electors,    the,    241-244, 

249-250,  273  note\  317  note. 

Emperor  of,  use  of  title  of,  370  and 

note  i. 
Federation    of,    under    Peace    of 

Westphalia,  394,  448. 
Feudalism   in,    122-127,    129-130, 
165,   232,   395,   436   note,  440- 
441. 
France,  relations  with,  see  under 

France. 
Freemen  in,  disappearance  of,  130- 

131- 

Frontiers  of,  exposed  in  fifteenth 

century,  354-355- 
Furstenbund,  406,  455  and  note f, 

531- 

Gauverfassung  in,  122. 

Hapsburg  rule  in  — 

Duration   of,   246;     Pfeffinger's 

reason  for,  403  note  m. 
Nature  of,  231. 

Henry  the  Fowler's  rule  in,  80. 

Hofrath    (Aulic    Council)    estab- 
lished in,  366-367,  391-392. 

Hohenstaufen,   house   of,  see  that 
title. 


558 


INDEX 


Germany  (continued)  — 
Imperial  connection  — 

Effect    of,    359,    430,   43I-432» 

434-435- 

Indissolubility  of,  216. 
Imperial    power     in,    decline    of, 

213. 
Imperial    prerogative,    limitations 

of,  165. 
Interregnum,      Great,      condition 

during,  214-215. 
Irish  missionaries  in,  333  note  !. 
Itio  in  paries,  right  of,  established, 

392. 
Justice,  imperial  court  of,  365,  394 

note  c,  405  and  note  P. 
Law  in  — 

International,   contributions    to, 
435-436. 

Land,  as  to,  436  note. 

Roman,  365-366  and  note1,  435- 

436. 
Liberal  party  in  — 

Aims  of,  463-464. 

Difficulties  of,  462. 

National- Verein,  469-470. 
Literary  activity  of,  406,  432,  496. 
Mentz,  Abp.  of,  primate  of,  127. 
Military  history  of  (seventeenth  and 

eighteenth  centuries),  396—398. 
Military  power  of,  432-433. 
Modern,  see  German  Empire. 
Monarchy  of — 

Decline  of  power  of,  216-217. 

Foreign  nominees  for,  231,  267 
note?,  521. 

Personality,  importance  of,  179. 

Standard  maintained  by  sover- 
eigns for  four  centuries,  246. 
Napoleon's    policy    as    to,    413- 

4I5- 
National    existence    of,   beginning 

of,  78. 
Nationality,  sentiment  of — 

Corpus    Catholicorum,    hostility 

to,  385. 
Dawn  of,  368. 
Napoleon's  attitude  towards,  413 

note  J. 
Prussia    the    cynosure    of,    457 

note. 

South  Germany,  in,  480-481. 
Nobles,  power  of,  229-230. 


Germany  (continued')  — 

North  German  Confederation,  456, 

478-479,  484. 

Palsgrave  of  the  Rhine,  242-244. 
Parliament  of  1848,  465-468,  488, 

498. 

Particularism,  460  and  note*,  495. 
Pragmatic  Sanctions,  see  that  title. 
Protestant  princes  of,  376,  385,  386 

note,  388. 

Public  Peace  proclaimed  in,  366. 
Race  differences  in,  430-431. 
Reform  Union  (1862),  469. 
Regalian    rights,    transference    of, 

from  Crown,  232,  247,  249. 
Reichskammergericht    established, 

365. 

Revolution  of  1848,  465-468. 
Rheinbund,  414  and  note1,  456. 
Roman  Catholics  in,  493,  494. 
Smalkaldic  league,  374,  455  note1. 
Solidarity   of,    inaugurated    under 

Otto,  1 21-122,  130,  143-144. 
Sub-divisions    of,    multiplicity  of, 

394,405  note*,  436. 
Towns  — 

Antique  style  affected  by,  274- 
275  and  note. 

Constantinople  compared  with, 
328. 

Diet,  the,  position  in,  233  note', 
367,  381. 

Growth  of,  r  80. 

Hanseatic  League,  231,  483. 

Imperial  policy  regarding,  440. 

Leagues  of,  214-215,  231,  368 
and  note\  483. 

Power  of,  231-232. 

Rhine  cities,  league  of,  214-215, 
231. 

Swabian  League,  368. 

Waning  of,  399. 
Unification  of — 

Achievement  of,  482,  484. 

Attempt  at  (fifteenth   century), 

367- 

Austria,  exclusion  of,  469. 

Difficulties  of  promoting,  464. 

Frankfort  Parliament's  draft  con- 
stitution, 466. 

History  of  movement  for,  460 
note  k. 

Italian  sympathy  with,  441. 


INDEX 


559 


Germany  —  Unification  of  (confd} — 
Revolution  of  1848,  effect  of,  468. 
Swift  consolidation  effected  by, 

491. 

Theorists'  influence  on,  497,  500. 
Winterfeldt,  scheme  of  (1757), 

454  note  e. 
Wahlcapitulation,  372  note*-,  399— 

400,  402  note '. 
War   of    Liberation    (1814),  460, 

462,  482,  496. 
Weakness  of,  in  fifteenth  century, 

358-359- 

Zollverein,  creation  of,  465 ;   Prus- 
sian, 480. 
Gerson,  John,  352. 
Gewoldus,  236  note*. 
Ghibelines  — 

Cities,  government  of,  granted  to, 

279. 
Name  of,  explained  by  Villani,  355 

note. 

Rienzo  of  party  of,  299. 
otherwise  mentioned,  212, 222,  223, 

251,  271,  272  note*,  278,  302. 
Godfrey  of  Viterbo,  quoted,  193. 
Goethe,  394  note  c,  408. 
Golden  Bull  of  Charles  IV  — 
Provisions  of,  234,  243,  539,  541. 
Seal  of,  250. 
Treaty    of  Westphalia    compared 

with,  389. 
Gothic  architecture,  absence   of,   in 

Rome,  311,  316. 
Goths  — 

Arianism  of,  29. 

Characteristics  of,  28. 

Conversion  of,  to  Latin  Christianity, 

334- 
Soldiers   of  the   Eastern   Empire, 

service  as,  15. 
Teutonic  invaders   so    designated, 

24  note. 

West,  30,  32,  35. 

Great  Interregnum,  214  and  note*. 
Greek  Church,  see  Church,  Eastern. 
Greek  fire,  329—330  and  note. 
Greek   language,   knowledge    of,   in 

the  West,  345  note. 
Gregorovius,  Ferdinand,  288  no/ee. 
Gregory   the   Great,    Pope,    31,    48 

note*,  154. 
Gregory  II,  Pope,  38,  40  note\  102. 


Gregory  III,  Pope,  39. 

Gregory  V,  Pope,  electoral  system 
ascribed  to,  235-236;  tomb  of, 
307;  otherwise  mentioned,  145, 
259  note,  285. 

Gregory  VII,  Pope  (Hildebrand),  re- 
forms of,  158  and  note  h;  pre- 
tensions of,  61,  204,  218-219, 
220,  292,  438;  quarrel  with 
Henry  IV,  153,  159-160,  167- 
168;  letter  to  William  the  Con- 
queror, 160-161;  excommuni- 
cation of  Henry  IV  by,  162; 
Hungary  claimed  by,  183;  Will- 
iam the  Conqueror's  defiance 
of,  217—218;  imprisonment  of, 
310  note;  Robert  Wiscard  the 
ally  of,  312  ;  Innocent  X  con- 
trasted with,  392  note  ;  simile  of, 
for  Papacy  and  Empire,  426^; 
death  of,  163  ;  characteristics  of, 
161  ;  otherwise  mentioned,  108, 
198,  199,  202,  306,  315,  437,  519, 
522. 

Gregory  IX,  Pope,  Digest  of  Canon 
Law  by,  102,  218;  excommuni- 
cates Frederick  II,  209. 

Gregory  X,  Pope,  220. 

Guelfs  — 

Italian,  formation  of  party  of,  177. 

League  of,  279. 

Name    of,    explained    by  Villani, 

355  note. 

Rienzo  of  party  of,  299. 
otherwise    mentioned,     251,     272 
note*,  279. 

Guido  of  Spoleto,  83. 

Gunther  Ligurinus,  199  noten. 

Giinther  of  Schwartzburg,  230. 

Gustavus  Adolphus,  King  of  Sweden, 
387-388. 

Hadrian  I,  Pope,  Charlemagne  sum- 
moned by,  41  ;  supposed  grant 
of  ins  eligendi  by,  155;  letters  of, 
on  Charles  as  representative  of 
Constantine,  518;  otherwise  men- 
tioned, 46,  65,  137,  411  and 
note  h. 

Hadrian  IV,  Pope  (Nicholas  Break- 
spear),  Frederick's  contest  with, 
169-170,  202  ;  pretensions  of, 
170,  305  note,  308  note(;  career 


560 


INDEX 


of,  169  note**;  on  papal  corona- 
tion of  emperors,  197;  obnoxious 
picture  exhibited  by,  198  and 
note*;  interdicts  Arnold  of 
Brescia,  294;  otherwise  men- 
tioned, 307. 

Hagarenes,  347  and  note. 
Hague  tribunal,  265  note  \ 
Hakon,  King  of  Norway,  211   and 

note  e. 

Hamburg,  180  note,  483. 
Hanover  — 

Austria  alienated  from,  473;  sup- 
ported by,  477. 
Autocratic  government,  464. 
England  acquired   by   elector   of, 

398. 

Prussia,  war  with  (1866),  477. 
Prussian  annexation  of,  245  note  *, 

456- 

Reform  union  supported  by,  469. 
Hanseatic  confederacy,  231,  483. 
Hapsburg,  castle  of,  215  note. 
Hapsburg,  house  of — 

Characteristics  of,  372  note  c 
Chemnitz  on,  391. 
French  throne  offered  to,  by  Boni- 
face VIII,  185. 
Germany,  rule  in  — 

Duration    of,   246;    Pfeffinger's 

reasons  for,  403  note  m. 
Nature  of,  231. 
Hungary's    connection   with,    184 

note  b. 

Papacy,  leanings  to,  373. 
Rudolf,  founder  of  house  of  Austria, 

215  and  note. 

Selfish  policy  of,  356,  400-402. 
Hardenberg  (Prussian  minister),  458, 

459- 

Harold  Blue  Tooth,  142,  184. 

Harun  er  Rashid,  Khalif,  64  and 
note  i. 

Heidelberg  — 

Rupert  buried  at,  525. 
University  of,  250  note  f. 

Henry  I,  King  (the  Fowler),  chosen 
king  of  Germany,  80,  121 ;  elec- 
tion of,  235;  represses  Hungari- 
ans, 121,  130-131;  fortress  life 
inaugurated  by,  130-131;  Eng- 
lish alliance  formed  by,  142;  not 
reckoned  emperor  by  Italian 


writers,  195  note ;  Danes  sub- 
dued by,  533;  tomb  of,  525; 
otherwise  mentioned,  140,  180, 

45°.  5OI«  535- 

Henry  II,  Emp.  (the  Saint),  election 
of,  148,  235;  tomb  of,  525;  title 
of,  536;  otherwise  mentioned, 
1 66. 

Henry  III,  Emp.,  career  of,  150-152; 
ecclesiastical  reforms  of,  151, 
204;  rights  of  Rome  upheld  by, 
1 86;  position  of,  compared  with 
that  of  Philip  I  of  France,  217; 
tomb  of,  524;  otherwise  men- 
tioned, 156,  164,  167,  170,  228, 
349,  448. 

Henry  IV,  Emp.,  accession  of,  152; 
date  of  coronation  of,  159  note; 
coronation  of,  not  recognized 
by  Baronius,  195  note;  quarrel 
with  Pope  Gregory  VII,  153, 
159-160,  167-168;  Gregory's 
excommunication  of,  162;  death 
of,  163;  debarred  from  Crusades, 
164;  burgher  support  of,  165; 
tomb  of,  524;  title  of,  536; 
otherwise  mentioned,  158,  235 
note^,  312. 

Henry  V,  Emp.,  Concordat  of  Worms 
concluded  by,  163-164;  reck- 
oned as  Henry  III  by  Baronius, 
195  note;  coronation  of,  306; 
tomb  of,  524. 

Henry  VI,  Emp.,  Richard  of  Eng- 
land's homage  to,  187-189; 
Naples  and  Sicily  acquired  by, 
190,205;  proposal  of,  for  hered- 
itary succession  of  crown,  205- 
206,  240;  tomb  of,  208  noteb, 
524;  title  of,  537;  otherwise 
mentioned,  185,  200. 

Henry  VII,  Emp.,  in  Italy,  278-279, 
355;  edictum  de  laesae  maiesta- 
tis  issued  by,  259  note ;  tomb 
of,  524;  otherwise  mentioned, 
221,  229,  231,  272,  284,  309,  428, 

524. 

Henry  II,  King  of  England,  Ireland 
bestowed  on,  169  noteb;  finan- 
cial policy  of,  232;  otherwise 
mentioned,  171,  187  and  note1, 
202. 

Henry  V,  King  of  England,  188. 


INDEX 


56l 


Henry  VIII,  King  of  England,  styles 
himself  'King  of  Ireland,'  266 
note  nj  otherwise  mentioned,  371, 

372. 

Henry  II,  King  of  France,  376. 
Henry  I,  King  of  Saxony,  502. 
Henry  of  Thuringia,  211. 
Heraclius,     Emp.,    332,    337     note, 

5H- 

Heruli,  24-25  note. 
Hessen-Cassel,  245  note  a,  464. 
Hessen-Darmstadt,  245  note  a,  480. 
Hessen-Homburg,  245  note  a. 
Hildebert,  Abp.  of  Tours,  286  note  d, 

542. 

Hildebrand,  see  Gregory  VII. 
Hippolytus  a  Lapide,  treatise  of,  cited, 

390-391. 

Historical  feeling,  275-276. 
Hohenstaufen,  castle  of,  520. 
Hohenstaufen,  house  of — 
Conrad  III  of,  166. 
End  of,  211. 

Era  of,  characteristics  of,  182. 
Tenure  of  imperial  throne  by,  dura- 
tion of,  246. 

Hohenzollern,  house  of,  451,  486. 
Holland  — 

French  Empire,  included  in,  412. 
Independence  of,  established,  393. 
King  of,  a  member  of  German 

Diet,  393. 
Holstein,  393,  398  (see  also  Schles- 

wig-Holstein). 
Holy  Alliance,  460. 
Holy  Roman  Empire,  see  Empire, 

Holy  Roman. 
Honorius,  Emp.,  24,  30. 
Honorius  I,  Pope,  38  note  c. 
Honorius  II,  Pope,  269  note*. 
Hugh  of  Burgundy,  84. 
Humbert  of  Dauphine,  265  note™. 
Humboldt,  William  von,  460. 
Hungarians,  invasions  by  (ninth  cen- 
tury), 79. 
Hungary  — 

Austrian  acquisition  of,  184  noteb, 

398;   her  rule  over,  433. 
Coronations  in,  198  note  m. 
Empire,  relations  with,  183-184. 
Frederick  III  worsted  by,  278. 
Germany    harassed    by    (fifteenth 
century),  355. 


Hungary  (continued)  — 

Hapsburgs,   nature  of  connection 
with,  184  note  b. 

Henry  the  Fowler's  repression  of, 
121,  130-131. 

Henry  Ill's  subjugation  of,  151. 

Legal  system  of,  366. 

Liberation,  efforts  towards,  496. 

Otto  the  Great's  dominion  over,  142. 

Otto  Ill's  policy  regarding,  146. 

Ottoman  invasion  of,  354. 

Regal  title  in,  202  note  b,  265. 
Huns,  17,  23. 
Huss,  255. 

Iceland  — 

Imaginative  vision  in,  346. 
Independence  of,  to  1262,  186. 
Norway,  overtures  from,  280  note*; 

submission  to,  211  note*. 
Valland    a    name    for    France    in 

writings  of,  368  note l. 
Iconoclast  controversy,  38-39,  46, 65, 

154,  341- 

Imperialism,  kinds  of,  428-430. 
India  — 

Mogul  monarchs  in,  535. 

Sea  route  to,  362  note. 
Individuality,  assertion   of  principle 

of,  377- 

Ini,  King  of  West  Saxons,  32,  40 
note '. 

Innocent  III,  Pope,  supports  Otto 
IV,  206;  excommunicates  him, 
207,  220;  Translation  of  the 
Empire  theory  originated  by, 
2 1 8,  219  and  notes  *^\  inter- 
ference at  elections  claimed  by, 
239  and  note^;  Innocent  X 
contrasted  with,  392  note;  power 
of,  438;  otherwise  mentioned, 
108,  240,  308,  522. 

Innocent  IV,  Pope,  study  of  civil  law 
prohibited  by,  268  note;  quar- 
rel with  Frederick  II,  209-210; 
power  of,  424. 

Innocent  VI,  Pope,  299. 

Innocent  X,  Pope,  236  note  k,  392  and 
note. 

International  character  assumed  by 
the  Empire,  129-130. 

Interregnum,  the  Great  (1250-73), 
214  and  note*. 


20 


562 


INDEX 


Intolerance,  381-383. 
Investitures,  see  under  Papacy. 
Ireland  — 

Brehon  law,  189. 

Christian  but  not  Roman,  13  note. 
Empire,  relations  with,  190. 
Henry  VIII's  claim  to  kingship  of, 

266  note  n. 

Iceland  visited  from,  1 86  note^. 
Imaginative  vision  in,  346. 
Missionaries  from,  in  Germany,  333 

note '. 
Papal  gift   of,  to   Henry  II,    169 

noteb. 
Papal  supremacy,   late    admission 

of,  190  note. 
Round  towers  of,  526. 
Scots  of,  tributary  to  Charlemagne, 

70  and  note1. 

Irene,  Empress,  46-47,  61—62. 
Irminsul,  70,  516. 
Isaac    Angelus,     Emp.,     200,     343, 

S2?- 
Isidore,     Decretals    of    («*     under 

Church,  Latin  sub-heading  False 

Decretals). 

Isolation,  principle  of,  125. 
Italy — 

Archchancellorship    of,    243    and 

note. 

Charles  V's  position  in,  371-372. 
Condition  of  (tenth  century),  86. 
Crown  of,  significance  of  assump- 
tion of,  193  note1. 
Empire's  loss  of,  212-213,  280,  355, 

448. 

Factious  spirit  surviving  in,  356. 
Frederick  Barbarossa  in,  175. 
Germany  — 

Connection  with,  effect  of,  431- 
432. 

Separateness  from,  193  notez. 
Justinian's  reconquest  of,  323. 
Lombard    invasions,    29,    37,   38, 

490. 
Nationality,  sentiment  of,  138,  177, 

299.  3 J 9-320,  496. 
Otto  the  Great's  rule  in,  138-139. 
Prussian  alliance  with,  477. 
Turbulence    of  (twelfth  century), 

174. 
Unification  of,  441,  497,  500,  504- 

508. 


James  III,  King  of  Scotland,  189  and 
note  *. 

Jerusalem  — 
Council  of,  95. 

Kingship   of,    claimants    for,    369 
and  note  P. 

Jesuits,  376. 

Jews  — 

Germany,  in,  232. 
Separateness  of,  in  second  century, 
5-6. 

Joachim  II,  Elector  of  Brandenburg, 
451  notec. 

John  VIII,  Pope,  85  note'),  156,  221 
note  i. 

John  XII,  Pope,  88,  133-136. 

John  XXII,  Pope,  quarrel  of,  with 
Lewis  IV,  221-224,  297 ;  wide- 
spread disgust  against,  223  and 
noteu;  pretensions  of,  224. 

John,  Archduke  of  Austria,  466,  467. 

John,  King  of  Bohemia,  233. 

John  of  Constantinople,  187. 

John  of  Jandun,  222,  223,  224  note, 
521. 

John  of  Salisbury,  cited,  295. 

John  Tzimiskes,  Emp.,  139,  140,  325. 

Joseph  I,  Emp.,  400. 

Joseph  II,  Emp.,  titles  of,  203 ; 
career  and  policy  of,  403-404 ; 
proposal  as  to  Austrian  Nether- 
lands, 531  ;  otherwise  mentioned, 
274,  406,  455. 

Jovian,  Emp.,  34. 

Julian,  Emp.,  526. 

Julius  II,  Pope,  369  and  note  m,  536. 

Julius  Nepos,  Emp.,  25. 

Jurisprudence,  see  Law. 

Justin  I,  Emp.,  29  note. 

Justinian,  Emp.,  Corpus  Turis  of,  see 
that  title;  conquers  Italy  and 
Sicily,  29,  323 ;  study  of  works 
of,  254, 272-273  ;  war  of,  against 
Ostrogoths,  288 ;  church  kept 
in  subjection  by,  337 ;  men- 
tioned, 17. 

Jutland,  142,  474,  534. 

Kalisch,  Proclamation  of,  458. 

Kalo- Joannes,  Emp.,  343. 

Kant,  Immanuel,  486. 

Kaunitz,  404  note  n. 

King  of  the  Romans,  title  of,  540-541. 


INDEX 


563 


Kings,    Imperial    right    of   creating, 

265-266. 
Knighthood,    266    and   note0,    412 

note '. 

Koniggratz,  417,  477. 
Krakow,  Treaty  of,  45 1  note  c. 

Lactantius  quoted,  2O-2I. 

Laeti,  16. 

Lambert  of  Lombardy,  83. 

Langensalza,  417. 

Latin  language,  94,  97,  119,  263,  347, 

508. 

Latin    races,  French  claims   to  pro- 
tectorate of,  420  and  note. 
Latin  renaissance,  254. 
Lauenburg,  474,  476,  533. 
Lauresheim  quoted,  53-54. 
Law  — 

Autocracy  of,  in  Middle  Ages,  429. 

Brehon,  189. 

Canon    Law,    101-102,    348,   436 
note. 

Capitulary  of  802,  66. 

Commercial,  Code  of,  in  Germany, 
468. 

Ecclesiastical    imitation    of,    101- 

102. 

Emperor    the    personification    of, 
264. 

German  Empire,  in,  central  author- 
ity for,  486. 

Germanic  tribes,  of,  73  note. 

International  — 

German    contributions    to,  435, 

43°- 

Modern  growth  of,  264. 
Local  customs  remodelled  by  the 

Civil  Law,  264  note. 
Roman  — 

Corpus  furis,  see  that  title. 
Creation  of,  348. 
Diffusion  of,  366. 
Drawbacks  of,  366  note'1. 
Germany,  prevalence  in,  365-366 

and  note1,  435. 
Permanence  of,  31—33. 
Survival  of  idea  of.  in  the  Em- 
pire, 427,  43S-436- 
Study  of — 

Papal  hostility  to,  269  ana  note'1. 
Revival   of,  172-173,  254,    292, 
365. 


Law  (continued}  — 

Uniformity   through,   the    aim    of 
Charlemagne,  74,  92. 

Leo  I,  Emp.,  526. 

Leo   the  Isaurian,  Emp.,  38,  332. 

Leo  I,  Pope,  154. 

Leo  III,  Pope,  accession  of,  44; 
Charles  the  Great  crowned  by, 
2,  48-49,  52-61,  154-155,  220, 
283,  344 ;  charter  issued  by,  on 
Charles's  coronation,  106  note ; 
Charles's  letters  to,  65  ;  triclin- 
ium constructed  by,  116. 

Leo  IV,  Pope,  Leonine  city  named 
from,  306  note*. 

Leo  VIII,  Pope,  135,  137,  156. 

Leo  IX,  Pope,  220  note*,  338 
note  \ 

Leopold  I,  Emp.,  244,  400,  452. 

Leopold  II,  Emp.,  404. 

Lessing,  406. 

Lewis  I,  Emp.  (the  Pious),  crowned 
by  his  father,  61,  77 ;  re- 
crowned  by  the  Pope,  156 ; 
ius  eligendi,  &c.,  renounced  by, 
155  ;  receives  Danish  homage, 
184 ;  tomb  of,  525  ;  otherwise 
mentioned,  536,  540  note^. 

Lewis  II,  Emp.,  letter  of,  to  Basil  the 
Macedonian,  no  and  note  e,  219 
note*;  Basil's  reproach  of,  342; 
tomb  of,  524  ;  otherwise  men- 
tioned, 201  note  *,  291,  441,  540. 

Lewis  IV.  Emp.  (the  Bavarian), 
territories  adjudged  by,  to  Ed- 
ward III  of  England,  185  note  f ; 
homage  demanded  by,  from  Ed- 
ward, 1 88  ;  struggle  with  Papacy 
maintained  by,  220-225,  227 
note  b,  229,  438  ;  in  Rome,  222- 
224,  279-280,  297  ;  on  Wittels- 
bach  dispute,  243  ;  cited  to 
appear  before  Rienzo,  298  ;  ex- 
communication of,  521  ;  tomb 
of,  525  ;  otherwise  mentioned, 
234,  265  note  m,  355,  373. 

Lewis  XI,  King  of  France,  354. 

Lewis  XII,  King  of  France,  368. 

Lewis  XIV,  King  of  France,  398, 450. 

Lewis  of  Burgundy,  83  and  note. 

Lewis    the    Child,    Emp.,    80,    1 21, 

525- 
Lewis  the  German,  78. 


564 


INDEX 


Liberty  — 

Desire  for,  conditions  determining, 

463- 
Sentiment  of,  in  Italy,  in  twelfth 

century,  177. 
'Ligurinus,'  199  note  n. 
Literature  — 

Eastern  Empire,  in,  350  and  note. 
German,  406,  432,  496. 
Revival  of  (1100-1400),  254,  270. 
Lithuania,  Duke  of,  266  note  n. 
Lithuanians,  183,  286,  452. 
Liudprand,  Bp.,  on  Pope  John  XII, 
134-135,    136    noteA;    on    the 
Franks,  141  note;  otherwise  men- 
tioned, 20 1. 
Liudprand,  King  of  the   Lombards, 

38- 

Localization  of  authority,  7. 
Lombard  League,  177,  179,  212. 
Lombards  — 

Anti-clericalism  of,  37,  48  note  1. 

Charlemagne's  conquest  of,  41. 

Church,  hostility  to,  334  note  J. 

Crown  of,  significance  of  assump- 
tion of,  193  note  z. 

'  Flavii,'  title  of,  assumed  by  kings, 

45- 

Incursions  of,  29,  37-39,  490. 
Independence,  attempts  at  recovery 

of,  149. 

Otto,  King  of,  88  note  °. 
Lombardy  — 

Berengar,  King  of,  83. 
Cities  of — 

Frederick   Barbarossa's  attitude 
towards,  172,  175-179,  343- 

Henry  VII  welcomed  by,  279. 

Imperial  struggle  with,  343,  440. 

Papal  alliance  with,  176-177,  205. 

Progress  of,  176. 

Rise  of,  292. 

Trade  of,  328  note  d,  344. 
Napoleon's  assumption  of  crown  of, 

410. 
Population    of,   superiority   of,  to 

Roman,  300. 

•Signoria'  established  in,  301. 
London,  Treaty  of  (1852),  472,  473 

and  note. 

Lorraine  (see  also  Lotharingia)  — 
Dukedom  of,  extinct,  242. 
French  acquisitions  in,  under  Peace 


of    Westphalia,    393 ;     by     re- 
unions, 398-399. 
Germany,  included  in,  183. 
Tuscany,  bartered  for,  401. 

Lothar  I,  Emp.,  territories  assigned 
to,  78  ;  tomb  of,  525  ;  otherwise 
mentioned,  150,  268,  291,  539, 
540  note  J>. 

Lothar  II,  Emp.  (the  Saxon),  election 
of,  238  ;  homage  of,  to  the  Pope, 
1 66,  169,  302-303 ;  tomb  of, 
525  ;  otherwise  mentioned,  198, 
309- 

Lothar,  King  of  Italy,  84. 

Lotharingia  (see  also  Lorraine)  — 
German  Empire  joined  by,  141. 
Henry  the  Fowler's  recovery  of,  80. 
Separation  of,  from  Italy  and  Bur- 
gundy, 78. 

Louis,  St.,  179. 

Louis  Napoleon,  Emperor  of  France, 
letter  of,  to  General  Forey,  420 
note  ;  Schleswig-Holstein  ques- 
tion, 474  note  ;  precipitates  war 
with  Germany,  480-481  ;  other- 
wise mentioned,  478  note  u. 

Louis  d'Outremer,  King  of  France, 
140. 

Louis  Philippe,  King  of  France,  465. 

Liibeck,  180  note,  483. 

Luneville,  Peace  of,  413. 

Luther,  Martin,  371,  386. 

Luxemburg,  246,  477,  480. 

Magnus  the  Good,  King,  75  note f. 

Magyars,  80, 133,  368  note  \  467,  478. 

Malarich,  34. 

Manfred  (son  of  Frederick  II),  211. 

Marcian,  Emp.,  526. 

Marcus  Aurelius,  Emp.,  16 ;  column 

of,  304. 

Maria  Theresa,  403. 
Marseilles,    Frankish   acquisition   of, 

29  note. 
Marsilius  of  Padua,  Arnold  of  Brescia 

a  forerunner  of,  295  ;   Lewis  IV 

supported  by,  222-228  and  notes; 

on  Mohammedanism,  514;  career 

of,  520-521. 

Mary  of  Burgundy,  357,  361,  531. 
Matilda   of  Tuscany,  Countess,    160, 

1 68,  207,  278. 
Matthias,  Emp.,  387. 


INDEX 


Maurice,  Emp.,  154. 

Maurice  of  Saxony,  374  and  note  e. 

Maximilian  I,  Emp.,  on  financial  state 

of  the  Empire,  233  note  d ;  reason 

for   choice    of,    361  ;    power   of 

Hapsburgs  founded  by,  361  and 

note ;  Netherlands  acquired  by, 

357 ;    struggle   with   the   Swiss, 

357  ;   establishes  Hofrath,  366  ; 

scheme  of,  as  to  the  Papacy,  370 ; 

tomb  of,  at  Innsbruck,  514,  525  ; 

title   of,   369,    536,    540  note  * ; 

epoch  of,  362  et  seq.  ;  otherwise 

mentioned,  402  note '. 
Maximilian  II,  Emp.,  375,  525. 
Maximilian,  King  of  Bavaria,  244. 
Maximin,  Emp.,  15. 
Mazzini,  497,  500. 
Mecklenburg,  position  of,  in  twelfth 

century,  183. 

Mecklenburg-Schwerin,  487. 
Mediterranean  Sea,  Ottoman  suprem- 

acy  in,  354. 
Meissen,  Mark  of,  139. 
Mellobaudes,  34. 
Mentz,  Abp.  of — 

Archchancellorship     of    Germany 

held  by,  243  and  note. 
Electoral    privilege    of,    241    and 

note  u,  243. 

Primacy  of  Germany  held  by,  127. 
Mentz,  Archbishopric  of,  transferred 

to  Regensburg,  245  note  b. 
Merovech,  35. 

Merovingians,  deposition  of,  39. 
Merseburg,  battle  of,  85. 
Merseburg,  Diet  at,  185. 
Metternich,  Prince,  458-461,  465. 
Michael,  Emp.,  62  and  note  °. 
Michael  the  Scot,  211  note  *• 
Micklegarth,  328  note  c. 
Middle  Ages  — 

Antichrist,  views  concerning,  516- 

5f7«; 

Antiquity,  reverence  for,  253,  267— 
268,  270-276,  318. 

Art  of,  115-118. 

Church,  conception  of,  423-424. 

Concrete  thinking,  tendency  tow- 
ards, 96-97,  99. 

Conduct  and  theory  in,  divergence 
of,  119-120,  132-133. 

Dead,  treatment  of,  294  note  k. 


Middle  Ages  (continued)  — 

Divine  right  of  Emperors,  theories 

of,  260-261. 

Feudalism  the  product  of,  91. 
Historical  feeling  lacking  in,  275- 

276. 
Imaginative  vision  of,  in  the  West, 

345-346. 

Imperialism  of,  429—430. 
Obedience,  attitude  towards,  423. 
Realism  of,  97-99. 
Rome  in,  285  et  seq. 
Theories  of,  90  et  seq. 
Trade -guilds  of,  274,  300. 
Unity,  passion  for,  422. 
Unpolitical  nature  of,  91. 
Violence  in,  507. 
Milan  — 

Coronation  of  Emperors   at,    193, 

538.. 

Frederick     Barbarossa's     dealings 
with,  175-179,  343;  inscription 
in  Rome  commemorating,  308. 
French  and  Austrian  claims  as  to, 

368. 

Imperial  residence  at,  6  note*,  7. 
Napoleon  crowned  at,  410. 
Trade  of,  300. 
Visconti    of,   power    of,    269   and 

note  *. 

Missi,  67,  69,  138,  143,  291,  329. 
Mohammed  II,  Sultan,  64. 
Mohammedanism,    rise   of,   45    and 

note. 
Mohammedans,      idolatry     charged 

against  Christianity  by,  .38. 
Moissac  quoted,  54-55. 
Mommsen  quoted,  442-443. 
Monarchy  — 

Autocracy  identified  with,  330. 
Dante's   argument   for,    280;    his 

ideal  of,  319. 

Monasteries,  see  under  Church. 
Monophysites,  332. 
Monza,  coronation  of  Emperors  at,  193. 
Moors  in  Spain,  186,  354. 
Moravia,    Bohemian    acquisition    of, 

355- 

Mosaics,  308,  314,  518,  525. 
Munich,  Imperial  tombs  at,  525. 
Minister  — 

French  envoys  at,  185. 

Treaty  of,  388,  391,  393. 


566 


INDEX 


Musulmans  — 

Eastern    Empire's    conflicts  with, 

321,  325.  332. 
Spain  conquered  by,  45  note. 

Naples — 

Angevin  and  Aragonese   rule   in, 

190,  212. 
French  and  Austrian  claims  as  to, 

368. 

Henry  VI's  acquisition  of,  190,  205. 
Napoleon's   policy   regarding,   411 

note f. 

Norman  rule  of,  190. 
Napoleon  I,  Emp.  of  France,  changes 
by,  in  German  constitution,  245  ; 
parallel    between     Charles    the 
Great  and,  408-410,  528 ;    Pius 
VII's    relations   with,   410,   411 
and  notes ;  court   of,   412   and 
note1 ;    policy    regarding     Ger- 
many, 413-415,457 ;  forms  Con- 
federation of  the    Rhine,  456  ; 
Prussia   scorned   by,  456  ;  calls 
his  son  '  King  of  Rome,'  540. 
Nassau,  245  note*. 
Nationalities,  formation  of,  256. 
Nationality,  principle  of — 

Germany,  in,  see  under  Germany. 
Growth  of,  269. 
Imperial  opposition  to,  440. 
Italy,  in,  138,  177,  299,  319,  496. 
Triumph  of,  505. 
Naulobatus,  16. 
Neo-Platonism,  6. 
Nero,  Emp.,  n. 
Netherlands  — 

Hapsburg  acquisition  of,  357. 
Philip  IPs  accession  to,  375. 
Roman  Law  in,  366. 
Venice,  bartered  for,  by  Austria, 

4I3- 

Neustria,  73,  78. 
Nicaea,  Council  of,  352. 
Nicephorus,  Emp.,  62,  139,  140. 
Nicholas  I,  Pope,  61,  153,268,336. 
Nicholas  II,  Pope,  158. 
Nicholas  III,  Pope,  221. 
Nicholas  V,  Pope,  300,  313. 
Nicholas    Breakspear,   see    Hadrian 

IV. 
Nicomedia,    Imperial    residence    at, 

6  notec,  7. 


Normandy,  Edward  III  declared  en- 
titled to,  185  note*. 
Normans  — 

Apulian    dominions   of,    150,    158 

note  h. 

Comnenus,  repulse  by,  326. 
Naples  and  Sicily  under,  190,  212. 
Rise  of  (eleventh  century),  44. 
Norsemen,  ravages  of  (ninth  century), 

79- 
Norway  — 

Iceland,  relations  with,  21 1  note*, 

280  notei. 
Imperial  crown  offered  to  Hakon 

of,  211  and  note*. 
Independence  of  (twelfth  century), 

1 86. 
Niirnberg,  275  and  note. 

Ockham,  William  of,  222,  225,  227 
note  b,  339,  521,  523. 

Odo  (Eudes),  King  of  France,  82. 

Odoacer,  recognized  position  of,  24- 
26 ;  rule  of,  27  ;  called  '  patri- 
cian,' 40 ;  merges  Western  Em- 
pire in  Eastern,  62. 

Oecumenical  councils,  94. 

Olmutz,  conferences  at,  467. 

Optatus  —  on  the  early  church,  13 
note. 

Orthodox  Church,  see  Church,  Eastern. 

Osnabriick,  Treaty  of,  388,  391,  393. 

Ostrogoths  — 

Extinction  of,  in  Italy,  29,  336. 
Rome  adorned  by,  23  ;  ravaged  in 
war  against,  288. 

Otto  I,  Emp.  (the  Great),  Holy 
Roman  Empire  created  by,  80  ; 
Edith  the  wife  of,  84  note ',  142  ; 
first  expedition  into  Italy  (951), 
84 ;  descent  into  Italy  (962) , 
88  ;  coronation  feast  at  Aachen, 
122;  title  assumed  by,  128, 
position  of,  on  assumption  of 
Imperial  crown,  127 ;  policy 
towards  the  nobles,  124;  cleri- 
cal policy  of,  127-128,  143,  166, 
204;  in  Rome,  133-137,  305; 
deposes  Pope  John  XII,  135 ; 
rule  in  Italy,  138-139 ;  foreign 
policy,  139-142  ;  policy  towards 
West  Franks,  140-141  ;  Danish 
victories  of,  142,  184,  533; 


INDEX 


567 


Prankish  acknowledgment  of, 
as  suzerain,  185  ;  reckoned  Otto 
II,  274  note* ;  tomb  of,  524 ; 
empire  of,  compared  with  Charle- 
magne's, 142-144 ;  otherwise 
mentioned,  155,  157,  184,  192, 

337.  342,  361,  5°i- 

Otto  II,  Emp.,  Eastern  wife  of,  140  ; 
coronation  of,  540  note  h  ;  tomb 
of,  307,  524  ;  mentioned,  191. 

Otto  III,  Emp.,  reign  of,  144-148; 
Italian  sympathies  of,  147,  208  ; 
palace  of,  in  Rome,  146,  307  ; 
hangs  Crescentius,  304  note  * ; 
address  to  the  Roman  people, 
306  note  z  ;  finds  body  of  Charles 
the  Great,  538  note';  tomb  of, 
525;  title  of,  146,  535-536; 
otherwise  mentioned,  156,  157, 
184,  235,  236,  259  note,  265 
notem,  285,  318. 

Otto  IV,  Emp.,  relations  of,  with 
Innocent  III,  206-207,  220 ;  seal 
of,  522 ;  tomb  of,  525 ;  men- 
tioned, 185. 

Otto,  Bp.  of  Freysing,  1 73. 

Otto,  Duke  of  Bavaria,  242. 

Ottocar,  King  of  Bohemia,  ?j\<\ 
note. 

Ottoman  Turks — 

Bulgarians,  &c.,  conquered  by,  325, 

3.36. 
Claims    of,   to    represent    eastern 

Caesars,  421. 
Constantinople   captured   by,  326, 

354,  363- 
Invasions   by   (fifteenth   century), 

354- 

Wars  with    (eighteenth  century), 
399,  401. 

Palatinate  — 

Electoral    privilege    of,   241    and 

note'0-,  242,  243. 
Swedish  crown  acquired  by  family 

of,  398  note  e. 
Panslavism,  421. 
Papacy  (see  also  Church.  Latin  and 

Popes)  — 
Arnold  of  Brescia,  revolt  inspired 

by,  292-293. 

Austria  the  friend  of,  228,  373, 433, 
S°4- 


Papacy  (continued)  — 

Avignon,  transference  of  seat   to, 

221,  296,  310. 

Bull  Unam  Sanctam,  108  note*. 
Bull   Zelo   Domus  Dei,   392  and 

note. 

Bureaucracy  (1815),  319. 
Childeric  deposed  by,  39. 
Coins  of,  296  note11. 
Crusades  under,  205. 
Decline    of,    in     fourteenth     and 

fifteenth  centuries,  227-228. 
Degradation  of,  86,  291,  348  note, 

437- 
Election  of  Emperors,  claims  as  to, 

220,  349,  522. 
Emancipation   of,  at   founding  of 

Eastern  Empire,  26. 
Empire  — 

Conflict  with  — 

German  monarchy  weakened 

by,  217-218,  338. 
Inevitability  of,  168,  208,  438. 
Victory  in,  424. 
Reforms  effected  by  Emperors, 

204,  291,  348  note,  437. 
Variety   of  relations   with,  422, 

437,  438-439- 
Endowments  of,  157. 
Explanations  of,  inadequate,  444- 

445- 
False   Decretals,    156   and   note*, 

196-197,  422. 
Franks  the  champions  of,  36,  39, 

47,  334- 
Frederick  IPs  struggle  with,  208- 

211,438-439. 
German   clergy,  jurisdiction   over, 

360. 
German  hostility  towards,  78,  165, 

437- 
Hapsburg   leanings   to,   373,  433, 

5°4- 

Hostility  to,  by  admirers  of  anti- 
quity, 268. 

Hungary  claimed  as  a  fief  of, 
183. 

International  arbitration  claimed 
by,  256-257. 

Investitures,  struggle  of,  163-164, 
204,  260,  292. 

Irish  admission  of  claims  of,  190 
note. 


568 


INDEX 


Papacy  {continued'}  — 

Jurisprudence,  study  of,  prohibited 
by,  268  and  note. 

Lewis  TV's  struggle  with,  221-225, 
227  note  b,  229,  438-439. 

Local  character  attaching  to,  258. 

Lombard  cities  supported  by,  1 76, 
205. 

Lombard  invasions,  attitude  tow- 
ards, 37-39. 

Maximilian's  scheme  as  to,  370. 

Mediaeval  theory  as  to,  104. 

Newness  of,  425-426. 

Opinion  the  basis  of,  424. 

Plots  against  Emperors   fomented 

by.  305- 

Position  of,  compared  with  that 
of  primacy  of  Eastern  Church, 

337- 

Power  of — 

Growth  of,  37,  153-158. 
Trionfo's  book  on,  226. 

Prerogative  of,  latent  in  Charle- 
magne's time,  71. 

Pretensions  of,  100,  108  and  note*, 
221-222  and  note,  302-303, 

438. 
Reforms  of,  145,  151,  153,  204,  291, 

348  note,  437. 
Sun  and  moon  argument,  283,  522- 

523- 

Temporal  power 
Aims  at,  257. 

Arnold  of  Brescia  on,  294-295. 
Dante's  views  on,  283. 
Destruction  of,  504. 
Early  growth  of,  156-157. 
Opposition  to,  319. 
Territorial  ambitions  of,  42-43. 
Vicariate   of  the  Empire  claimed 

by,  22 1_  and  note*. 
Paschal  II,  Pope,  163. 
Patrician,  title  of,  40  and  notes^\ 

4i»  45- 

Paulicians,  332. 
Pavia  — 

Coronation  of  Emperors  at,  193, 
538. 

Council  of,  156. 
People,  the  — 

Definition  of  term,  261-262. 

Sovereignty  residing  in,  261-262. 
Persian  Empire,  theory  of,  92  note*. 


Petchenegs,  324. 

Peter,   King   of  Denmark   (Svend), 

185  and  note A 
Petrarch,  Francis,  letters  of,  to  John 

Colonna,  2&6andnotfc;  supports 

Rienzo,  271,  299;   procures  MS. 

of  Iliad  and  Odyssey,  345  note  ; 

mentioned,  318. 
Philip   of    Hohenstaufen,    206,    220, 

241  and  note  *,  525. 
Philip  I,  King  of  France,  217. 
Philip  III,  King  of  France,  217. 
Philip  IV  (the  Fair),  King  of  France, 

185,  279,  521. 

Philip  II,  King  of  Spain,  375. 
Philip  the  Good,  Duke  of  Burgundy, 

S3'- 

Phocas,  Emp.,  154,  526. 
Photian  schism,  86. 
Pipin  of  Heristal,  36. 
Pipin   the   Short,   Papacy  supported 
by,  39;  granted  title  of  Patrician, 
40  and  noteh;    gift  made  by,  40 
note  h,  42  ;  feudalism  under,  122 ; 
otherwise  mentioned,  154,   157, 
410. 

Pipin  (son  of  Charlemagne),  59. 
Pisa  — 

Architecture  in,  311. 
Henry  VII's  tomb  at,  525. 
Trade  of,  300,  344. 
Pius  —  significance  of  the  epithet,  67 

note. 

Pius  II,  Pope,  277  note1. 
Pius  VII,  Pope,  410,  411  and  note  K. 
Podiebrad,  George,  King  of  Bohemia, 

231,  278. 

Poitiers,  Frankish  victory  at,  38. 
Poland  — 

Empire,  relations  with,  184. 
Independence  of,  after  Great  Inter- 
regnum, 354. 
Legal  system  of,  366. 
Liberation,  efforts  towards,  496. 
Otto   the  Great's    influence    over, 

143-144. 

Otto  Ill's  policy  regarding,  146. 
Partition  of,  184,  397,  489  note. 
Prussia,  East,  under  suzerainty  of, 

451  note*,  452. 
Regal      title     in,     received    from 

Emperor,  265   and  notem. 
Saxony,  acquisition  by,  398. 


INDEX 


569 


Politics,   birth   of,   in   Middle  Ages, 

255- 

Pomerania,  183,  393. 
Popes    {see  also   Papacy ;    and  for 
particular      popes      see       their 
names)  — 
Chair  of,  515-516. 
Coronation   of  Emperors  by,  197 

and  nofei-igS. 
Corruption  and  degradation  of,  86, 

291,  348  note,  437-438. 
Election  of — 

Concordat     of    Worms    (1122), 

163-164. 
Hildebrandine    reforms    as    to, 

158. 
Imperial    right    to    confirm    or 

veto,  37,  137,  155. 
Majority  required  for,  238  note. 
General      Councils     declared     by 

Marsilius   to   be   above,    225. 
Kissing  of  feet  of,  515. 
Poor,   maintenance   of,    devolving 

on,  43   and  note*. 
Rival   claimants   of  the  popedom 

(tenth  century),  151. 
Rome,  influence  in,  301-302,  312. 
Scolding  tone  of,  392  note. 
Statesmanship  of,  316. 
Submission  of,  to  Emperors,  37, 88. 
Porcaro,  Stephen,  300,  310. 
Posen,  1 84,  489  note,  493. 
Praetaxation,  238. 
Pragmatic  Sanctions  — 

Frankfort,  of   (1338    and    1339), 

225. 
Frederick   IPs  (1220   and   1232), 

213,  229. 
Prague  — 

Imperial  tombs  at,  525. 
Treaty  of,  478  and  note,  480. 
University  of,  250  and  note*,  365. 
Presburg,  Peace  of,  412. 
Privilege  of  Austria,  200,  241  note  x. 
Provence,  183,  356,  529-530. 
Prussia  — 

Administration  of,  454,  463,  499. 
Austria,  hostility  to,  455  ;  war  with 

(1866),  477  note,  478. 
Brandenburg  elector's  assumption 

of  kingship  of,  398. 
East,  Duchy  of,  under  Polish  suze- 
rainty, 451  note',  452. 


Prussia  (continued)  — 

Federal  Council,  predominance  in, 

487-488. 

Frankfort  annexed  by,  1 80  note. 
Frederick  II's  policy  in,  396-397. 
Friedland,  battle  of,  456. 
Hanover  acquired  by  (1806),  456. 
Headship  of  Germany  disputed  for 

with  Austria  by,  432. 
Hessen-Cassel    annexed    by,    245 

note  a. 

Italy,  alliance  with,  477. 
Kalisch,  proclamation  of,  458. 
Kingdom  of,  established,  452. 
Liberal  party,  views  of,  on  Schles- 

wig-Holstein  question,  474-476. 
National  feeling  centred  on,  457. 
North  German  Confederation,  478- 

479,  484. 
Policy    of,    as    affecting    German 

unity,  498-500. 
Posen  seized  by  (1772),  184. 
Representative  institutions  of,  462- 

463- 
Schleswig-Holstein  question,  472- 

478. 

Seven  Years'  War,  404. 
Silesia  seized  by,  397,  454. 
Teutonic  Knights  established,  183. 
Tilsit,  Peace  of,  456. 
Zollverein     established     by,    465, 

480. 
Prussians,   origin    of    name   of,   452 

note  d. 
Pseudo-Isidorian  Decretals,  see  under 

Church,  Latin  sub-heading  False 

Decretals. 

Ratisbon,  Diet  of  (1653),  539. 
Ravenna  — 

Churches  of,  75  note,  514,  515. 
Exarch  of — 

Italian  obedience  to,  29. 
Lombard   invasions  against,  29, 

37- 
Exarchate    of,    Eastern    Emperor 

acknowledged  by,  43. 
Mosaics  of,  525. 
Round  towers  of,  526. 
Realism,  97-99. 
Reformation,  the  — 

Crisis  in  the   Empire  marked  by, 
448. 


570 


INDEX 


Reformation,  the  (continued}  — 
Effect  of,  on  the  Empire,  380-381, 

384-385. 
Excesses  of,  381. 

Intolerance  of  Protestants,  381-382. 
Significance  of,  377. 
Westphalia,  Peace  of,  the  close  of 

period  of,  388,  389. 
Regensburg  — 
Archiepiscopal  chair  transferred  to, 

245  note  b. 

Crown  of,  193  note  b. 
Imperial  tombs  at,  524-525. 
Religion  — 

Influence  of,  in  Middle  Ages,  507- 

510. 

Local  conception  of,  92. 
Mediaeval     Empire's     connection 

with,  no. 
Wars  of,  382 ;  Thirty  Years'  War, 

387- 
Renaissance,  the,  influence  of,  363- 

364- 

Revolution  of  1848,  465-468. 
Rhense  — 

Conference  at,  225,  249. 
Situation  of,  249  note  c. 
Richard,  Emp.  (Earl   of  Cornwall), 

election  of,    184,  214,  240  and 

note  *. 
Urban  IV's   letters  to,  259  note ; 

mentioned,  267  note  p. 
Richard  I,  King  of  England,  187-188. 
Richelieu,  Cardinal,  388. 
Ricimer,  24. 
Rienzo,  Cola  di,  Petrarch's   attitude 

towards,  271  ;  career,  revolution 

andideasof, 296-300, 524 ;  house 

of,  310. 

Robert,  King  of  France,  21 1. 
Robert,  King  of  Naples,  222. 
Robert  Wiscard,  King  of  Apulia,  150, 

158  note  h. 
Romaic,  327. 

Roman  citizenship,  extension  of,  5. 
Roman    Empire     (second    century) 

(see  also  Empire). 
Army  — 

Barbarians'  service  in,  14-15. 

Dependence  on,  4. 
Eternity  of,  assumed,  20-21,  23. 
Roman  Renaissance,  254. 
Romania,  343. 


Rome  — 

Alarich's  sack  of,  285,  288. 
Antiquity,  reverence  for,  316,  317. 
Approaches  to,  303. 
Architecture  in,  310-312,  314-315. 

Renaissance,  313-314;    absence 

of  Gothic,  316. 
Art  in,  287,  314. 
Buildings  in,  309-312 ;   destruction 

of,  312-313. 
Capitol  — 

Rebuilding  of,  315. 

Tablet  in,  of  Vespasian  receiving 

the  imperiutn,  297  and  note. 
Charlemagne's  government  of,  43, 

53- 

Charles  V's  sack  of,  312,  373. 
'  Christian  '  convertible  term  with 

'  Roman,'  81,  93  and  note  s. 
Church  centred  at  (fifth  century), 

31  and  note,  34. 
Churches  of — 

Ara  Coeli,  525. 

Bell-Towers  of,  314. 

Restorations  of,  313-314. 

Sant'  Antonio  Abate,  525. 

San  Bartolommeo  Isola,  307. 

San  Giovanni  e  Paulo,  525. 

St.  John  Lateran,  525 ;  mosaic 
of,  116-117,  3°8»  5*8;  coro- 
nation in,  279  and  note ; 
modernization  of,  309. 

San  Lorenzo,  525. 

S.  Maria  Antica,  288  note  e. 

Sta.  Maria  sopra  Minerva,  311. 

Santi    Quattro    Incoronati,    308 

and  note  {. 
Citizenship      conterminous      with 

Christianity,  I2,8i,93««o'  note%. 
Conrad  III,  overtures  to,  294. 
Constantinople     contrasted     with, 

348-349. 
Consulship,   perpetuation    of,   421 

note. 
Coronations  at,  193-194,  356,  501, 

538-539- 

Decay  of,  causes  of,  288-290. 
Disaffection  of,  to  Emperors,  329. 
Eastern  Empire's  loss  of,  323. 
Factions  in,  290. 
Feudalism    never    established    in, 

301,  316. 
Fevers  of,  518-519. 


INDEX 


571 


Rome  (continued)  — 

Frederick   Barbarossa,    deputation 

to,  174,  294;   concessions  from, 

174  note  m. 
Germany,  last  link  with,  snapped, 

392. 
History   of,   by    Gregorovius,   288 

note  e. 
Imitations    of,    in    Middle    Ages, 

273-276. 

Imperial  visits  to,  302-307. 
Joseph  II's  visit  to,  404. 
Law,  Roman,  see  under  Law. 
Leonine  city,  306  and  note  a,  315. 
Lewis   IV  received   by  people  of, 

222-224,  279-280,  297. 
Lombard  invasions  of,  38,  39. 
Memorials  of  Germanic  Emperors 

in»  3°7-3°8. 

Middle  Ages,  in,  285  et  seq. 

Modern  estimate  of,  287. 

Monte  Mario,  303  and  note. 

Mosaic  of  Lateran  Palace  at,  116- 
117,308,  518. 

Municipal  self-government  in,  292. 

Name  of,  perpetuation  of,  419. 

Name  of  '  Roman,'  Leo  VIII's  con- 
tempt for,  140. 

Neronian  field,  304  and  note  u. 

Nobility  in,  during  Middle  Ages, 
301  ;  buildings  raised  by,  309— 
310,  313. 

Otto  the  Great  in,  133-137. 

Otto  II  buried  in,  307. 

Otto  Ill's  rule  in,  146  ;  his  policy 
regarding,  148 ;  his  address  to 
the  people  of,  306  note  *;  his 
palace  in,  146,  307. 

Palatine  hill,  315  note. 

Palazzo  Cenci,  310  and  note. 

Papal  Supremacy  due  to  preemi- 
nence of,  loo. 

People  of — 

Degradation  of,  during  Middle 

Ages,  289,  293,  301. 
Electoral   rights   of,   in    Middle 

Ages,  317  note. 

Otto  Ill's  address  to,  305  note. 
Popes    and    Emperors,  attitude 
towards,  305. 

Pictures  in,  1 16-1 18, 308  and note{. 

Possession  of,  a  bulwark  of  West- 
ern Empire,  343-344. 


Rome  (continued)  — 

Saracen  sack  of,  79,  312  note  I. 
Sentiment  for,  285-286,  293,  319- 

320. 

Sieges  of,  288  and  note  f,  312. 
Supreme  position  of,  6-8,  23,  507 ; 
Dante's  arguments  for,  281-282. 
Theodorich's    restorations    at,  23, 

28. 
Traditions  of,  cherished  by  Eastern 

Empire,  326-327. 
United  Italy,  capital  of,  504. 
Universal  State,  as,  6,  316-317. 
Romulus  Augustulus,  Emp.,  63,  324, 

5H- 

Roncaglia,  Diet  of,  173,  174,  178. 
Roumania,  368  note  \ 
Roumanians,  335,  336,  339. 
Rudolf  I,  Emp.  (of  Hapsburg),  new 
era  with  reign  of,  215  and  note ; 
position  of,  compared  with  that 
of  Philip  III  of  France,  217; 
acknowledges     papal    authority 
over   German  crown,  220-221 ; 
financial  embarrassments  of,  232 ; 
coronation   feast    of,    244  note ; 
Dante's    presentation    of,    271- 
272 ;   tomb   of,    525  ;    otherwise 
mentioned,  229,  230,  242,  278. 
Rudolf  II,  Emp.,  387,  525. 
Rudolf,  King  of  Burgundy,  82,  141, 

I5°»  530. 

Rudolf  of  Swabia,  163,  198. 
Rupert,  Emp.,  Milanese  victory  over, 
2fx)notei;  election  of,  249  notee; 
tomb   of,    525  ;   otherwise  men- 
tioned, 280,  352,  355. 
Russia  — 

Claims  of,  in  the  East,  421. 
German  subjects  of,  502. 
Germany  — 

Aggressions  on,  464. 
Influence  of,  450. 
Influence  on,  493. 
Kalisch,  proclamation  of,  458. 
Legal  system  of,  366. 
Magyars  suppressed  by,  467. 
Prussia,  relations  with,  474  note. 
Religion,  State  support  of,  509. 
Russians  — 

Church  influence  on,  339,  351. 
Constantinople  threatened  by,  324- 


572 


INDEX 


Russians  {continued)  — 

Eastern  Empire,  relations  with,  335. 
Religious  character  of,  351. 

Sacksenspiegel,  239-240,  365. 
Sadowa,  battle  of,  477-478. 
St.  Olaf,  legend  of,  75  note  f. 
Salic  law,  32. 

Salvius  Otho,  Emp.,  274  note  J. 
Salzburg,  245  and  note  b. 
Saracens  — 

Prankish  successes  against,  36. 

Hagarenes,  called,  347  and  note. 

Rome  sacked  by,  79,  312  notel. 

Sicilian  supremacy  of,  149. 

Spain,  in,  354. 
Sardinia  — 

Enzio  made  king  of,  265  note  m. 

Justinian's  reconquest  of,  323. 
Savoy,  529,  530. 

Saxons,     Charlemagne's     expedition 
against  (798),  44 ;  his  terms  to, 

71- 

Saxony  — 

Electoral    privilege    of,    241    and 

note  u,  242. 
Imperial  office  held  by  Duke  of, 

243  and  note. 

Napoleon's  relations  with,  457. 
Poland  acquired  by,  398. 
Privileges  of,  modern,  483,  485. 
Prussia,  war  with  (1866),  478. 
Representation     of,     on    Federal 

Council,  487. 
Rhenish  Confederation  joined  by, 

456- 

Scandinavia,  legal  system  of,  366. 
Schaumburg-Lippe,  483. 
Schleswig  — 

Mark  of,  139,  184. 

Otto  the  Great's  annexation  of,  142. 

Schleswig-Holstein  question,  468, 

471-478,  533-534. 

Schmerling  (Austrian  minister),  470. 
Scholastic  philosophy,  254-255,  268. 
Scone,  coronation  stone  of,  115  note*, 

198  note  m. 
Scotland  — 

Homage  by  kings  of,  to  early  Eng- 
lish kings,  1 88  note  m. 
Notaries  in,  style  of,  189  note  '. 
Orkney  and  Shetland  acquired  by, 
451  note*. 


Scotland  (continued}  — 
Roman  law  in,  366. 
Scone,  coronations  at,   115  note*, 

198  note  m. 
Seljukian  Turks,  325. 
Septimius  Severus,  Emp.,  4. 
Sergius  IV,  Pope,  236  note  i. 
Servians  — 

Church  influence  on,  339. 
Conversion  of,  to  Christianity,  335. 
Ottoman  rule  over,  336. 
Simeon  Dushan's  reign,  325. 
Seven    Years'   War,  404,   448,    454 

note. 

Sicambri,  30,  34. 
Sicily  — 

Angevin   and  Aragonese  rule  in, 

190,  212. 
Hohenstaufen  possession  of,   190, 

205,  212. 

Justinian's  conquest  of,  29,  323. 
Norman  rule  of,  190. 
Papal  fief,  209. 

Sigismund,  Emp.,  visit  of,  to  England, 
189  and  note  r;  financial  embar- 
rassments of,  233  ;  attempts  con- 
ciliation of  the  Commons,  367  ; 
officiates  at  Council  of  Constance, 
402  note  k  ;  grants  Brandenburg 
to  Frederick,  451  ;  tomb  of,  525; 
otherwise  mentioned,  228,  231, 
266  note  n,  269,  280,  352,  373, 
374  note  d,  441. 
Sigismund,  King  of  Burgundy,  18  and 

note  h,  40. 
Silesia  — 

Bohemian  acquisition  of,  184,  355. 
Holstein  in  exchange  for,  proposal 

as  to,  476  note. 
Prussian  seizure  of,  397,  454. 
Simeon,  Tsar  of  Bulgaria,  336. 
Simeon  Dushan,  Tsar  of  Servia,  325. 
Sirmium,    Imperial   residence   at,   6 

note  c. 

Sixtus  V,  Pope,  313  note. 
Skyrri,  24-25  note  *. 
Slavery,  Platonic  theory  of,  92  and 

note  «. 
Slavs  — 

Conversion  of,  to  Christianity,  334- 

335- 
Eastern  Emperors  of  race  of,  335- 

336. 


INDEX 


573 


Slavs  {continued)  — 

Eastern   Empire's  struggles  with, 

324,  325- 
Otto  the  Great's  supremacy  over, 

142. 

Sobieski,  King  of  Poland,  399. 
Sozomen  cited,  285. 
Spain  — 

Athaulf 's  recovery  of,  30. 
Charlemagne's  influence  in,  7<x 
Consolidation  of,  354,  490. 
Empire,  relations  with,  186. 
Law,  Roman,  in,  32. 
Musulman  conquest  of  (712),  45 

note. 
Napoleon's   designs  on,  410,  411 

note  '. 

Philip  IPs  accession  to,  375. 
Saracens  in,  36,  354. 
Speyer  — 

Imperial  tombs  at,  525. 
Law  sittings  at,  394  note  c. 
Spoleto,  37. 

Stephen,  Pope,  40  note  h,  410. 
Stilicho,  15  and  note,  24. 
Stoicism,  6. 
Stralsund,  387. 
Styria,  400,  479,  492  note. 
Suleiman    the    Magnificent,   Sultan, 

421. 
Swabia  — 

Dukedom  of,  extinction  of,  229. 
Towns  of,  league  formed  by,  231, 

368. 
Sweden  — 

Hohenstaufen,  relations  with,  185- 

186. 
'  Majesty,'  title  of,  allowed  to  kings, 

263  note  3. 
Palatinate  family,  crown  acquired 

by,  398  note  e. 
Westphalia,  Peace  of,  acquisitions 

under,  393. 
Ynglings,  234  note. 
Switzerland  — 

Constitution  of,  compared  with  that 

of  Germany,  485  and  note  *. 
Forest  Cantons,  revolt  of  (1313), 

357- 

Freedom  of,  not  opposed  by  Em- 
perors, 440. 

French  Empire,  included  in,  412. 

German  subjects  of,  502. 


Switzerland  {continued)  — 

Independence  of,  established,  357- 

.  358,  393- 

Switzers,  232  and  note. 

Syagrius,  30,  35. 

Sylvester  I,  Pope,  forgery  of  Dona- 
tion of  Constantine  to,  43,  101, 
153.  302,  308  note  {,  514-515- 

Sylvester  II,  Pope  (Gerbert  of 
Aurillac),  145. 

Sylvius,  Aeneas,  cited,  278. 

Syria,  325,  332,  338,  347. 

Talleyrand,  409,  456. 

Taxation  —  curiales  as  tax-collectors* 

8  note. 

Tedesco,  origin  of  title,  306  note  *. 
Teia,  King  of  Ostrogoths,  45. 
Temporal  power,  see  under  Papacy. 
Teutberga,  case  of,  268. 
Teutonic  Knights,  451. 
Teutons    (see  also   Goths,  Vandals, 

&c.)  — 

Anti-clericalism  of,  78. 
Arianism  of,  334. 
Theodebert,   King  .of   the    Franks, 

17,  29  note. 

Theodorich   I,  Emp.,  called  'patri- 
cian,'40;  rule  of,  27-28 ;  Charle- 
magne compared  with,  71;  statue 
of,  placed  at  Aachen,  75  note  d; 
tomb    of,   513-514;     otherwise 
mentioned,  35,  336,  441. 
Theodosius  the  Great,  Emp.,  8,  12. 
Theophano,  139,  140,  144. 
Thirty  Years'  War  — 

Gelnhausen  damaged  in,  520. 
German  cities'  sufferings  in,  399. 
Origin  of,  244,  387. 
Unsatisfactory  result  of,  389—390. 
otherwise  mentioned,  401,  452. 
Tilsit,  Peace  of,  456. 
Titles  of  Emperors  — 

'Advocate      of      the      Christiam 

Church,'  &c.,  112,  203. 
Charles  and  Otto,  titles  of,  128. 
'  Germaniae  rex,'  369. 
'Imperator  Electus,'  369. 
'  Imperator  pacificus,'  259. 
'Kaiser,'  272. 
'  Majesty,'  263  note  i. 
Sanctity  of,  21. 
'  Semper  Augustus,'  273. 


574 


INDEX 


Titles  of  Emperors  (continued}  — 

Various,  535-537. 
Tolbiac,  35. 
Tortona,  176,  177. 
Tosti,  Padre,  quoted,  374  note  d. 
Trade  — 

German  Empire,  of,  494-495,  505- 
506. 

Italian  cities,  of,  328  note  d,  344. 
Trade-guilds,  274,  300. 
Trajan,  Emp.,  1 5 ;   column  of,  304. 
Translation  of  the  Empire  — 

Books  on,  220  note  °. 

Frederick  Barbarossa's  version  of, 

17S- 
Innocent  Ill's  theory  of,  219-220 

and  notes  k- '. 

Trent,  Council  of,  353  note  »>,  374,  375. 
Treves  — 

Imperial  residence  at,  6  note  c. 
Napoleon's  extinction  of  electorate 

of,  245. 
Treves,  Abp.  of — 

Electoral  privilege  of,  241. 
Title  of,  185. 

Trionfo,  Agostino,  226-227. 
Turks  — 

Ottoman,  see  that  title. 
Seljuk,  325,  326. 
Tuscany — 

Lorraine   bartered   for,  by   Haps- 

burgs,  401. 
Population    of,   superiority   of,  to 

Roman,  300. 

'Signoria'  established  in,  301. 
Towns  of — 

Imperial  struggle  with,  440. 
Rise  of,  292. 
Tyrol,  400,  479,  492  note. 

United  States  of  America,  constitu- 
tion of,  compared  with  that  of 
Germany,  485  and  note  a. 

Urban  IV,  Pope,  203  note d,  240 
note  *,  259  note  *•. 

Urban  VI,  Pope,  424  note. 

Utrecht,  Congress  of,  40x3  note. 

Valentinian  I,  Emp.,  8,  26. 
Valentinian  III,  Emp.,  24. 
Valland,  368  note  \ 
Vandals  — 

Arianism  of,  36, 


Vandals  ^continued)  — 

Conversion    of,    to    Latin    Chris- 
tianity, 334. 
Otherwise  mentioned,  288, 312  and 

note  *. 
Venetia,  Austrian  withdrawal  from, 

478,  504. 
Venice  — 

Austrian  rule  in,  433. 

Eastern  Empire  acknowledged  by, 

190-191,  323. 
Frederick     Barbarossa's     meeting 

with  Pope  Alexander  at,  171. 
Freedom  of,  190-191. 
Maximilian  opposed  by,  369. 
Netherlands     exchanged    for,    by 

Austria,  413. 
Trade  of,  300,  344. 
Verdun,  partition  of,  78. 
Vergilius,  Pope,  38  note  e. 
Verona,  28. 

Vespasian,  Emp.,  1 6,  22  note  T. 
Vicariate   of  the   Empire,   221  and 

note  "J. 
Vienna  — 

Congress  of  (1814-15),  416,458. 
Ottoman  approach  of,  354. 
Revolution  of  1848,  465. 
Treaty  of  (1815),  389. 
Treaty  of  (1864),  474. 
University  of,  250  note  f. 
Vienna  Final  Act  (1820),  461. 
Villani,  Matthew,  cited,  355  and  note. 
Villenage,  274. 
Virgil,  272. 

Visconti  Gian  Galeazzo,  269  note  *. 
Visigoths,  32  note  h. 
Vladimir   the   Great  (eleventh   cen- 
tury), 336. 

Waldemar,  the  Dane,  186. 

Wallachs,  368  note  \ 

Wallenstein,  387,  388. 

Wehlau,  Peace  of,  452  note  c. 

Welfs,  179,  207,  451. 

Welsh,  foreigners  so  named,  368 
note  \ 

Wends,  80,  450,  502. 

Wenzel,  Emp.,  favours  city  leagues, 
368  note k;  extract  from  letter 
to,  424  note ;  deposition  of,  230; 
tomb  of,  525;  otherwise  men- 
tioned, 232,  250,  352. 


INDEX 


575 


Westphalia,  kingdom  of,  456. 
Westphalia,  Peace  of — 

Diet's  rights  settled  by,  391-392. 

Era  marked  by,  393-394. 

Federation  constituted  under,  448. 

Gainers  by,  393. 

Importance  of,  389. 

International  law  necessitated  by, 

43°' 

Religion,  provisions  as  to,  402  note*. 
Roman  sovereignty  abrogated  by, 

392. 

Swiss,    independence     of,     estab- 
lished at,  357-358,  393. 

Wetzlar,  law  sittings  at,  394  no(ec. 

Wiclif,  John,  255,  294  note*,  339. 

Wilfrid  (St.  Boniface),  155. 

William   I,   Emp.   of  Germany,  503 
and  note. 

William  I,  King  of  Prussia,  470-471. 

William  IV,  King  of  Great  Britain, 
464  and  note. 

William  of  Holland  (thirteenth  cen- 
tury), 211,  213. 

William  Rufus,  King  of  England,  218. 

William    the    Conqueror,   King    of 
England,  160-161,  217-218. 

William  the  Lion,  King  of  Scotland, 
1 88. 


Winfrith  (St.  Boniface),  36. 
Wiscard,   Robert,  the   Norman,  312 

andnotei,  315. 

Wittelsbach,  House  of,  242,  244. 
World-empire  — 

Mediaeval  theory  of,  93,  439-440. 

Metaphysical  basis  of,  97-99. 
World-religion,  mediaeval  theory  of, 

91-93. 
Worms  — 

Concordat  of  (1122),  163-164, 

Diet  of,  371,  386. 
Woytech,  see  Adalbert 
Wiirtemberg  — 

Hardenberg's  scheme  opposed  by, 

459- 

Napoleon's  relations  with,  457. 
North  Germany  — 

Isolation  from,  479. 

Military  treaty  with,  480. 
Privileges  of,  483,  485. 
Reform  Union  supported  by,  469. 
Representation     of,    on    Federal 

Council,  487. 

Rheinbund  joined  by,  414. 
Wiirtemberg,  Duke  of,  245. 

Zeno,  Emp.,  25. 
Ziani,  Doge,  171. 


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